Site: Agarwado village.
Project Component: Tourist Village, salt pans and fisherman’s wharf.
Area: 75,000 square meters plus.
Project: “Spread over 18.6 acres, this site has natural salt pans and existing village clusters. A model Goan village is proposed here showcasing daily life as well as art and culture constructed around internal squares which will serve as entertainment and presentation areas. The complex will also house a 100 room village hut accommodation with medical and rejuvenation centre targeted towards tourists looking for rejuvenation therapy and a touch of local culture.. salt pans will be retained as a tourist attraction and history of salt museum to be a part of the attraction”
Tiracol-check, Amdai-check, Chapora-check. The checklist of places to take over and bury them with the debris of development and create playgrounds for the filthy rich at the cost of lands, livelihoods and lives of the locals is getting longer. The latest in this list is Chapora. The extract above, is from the project report of the Rs 1000 crore, supposed eco-tourism project. It is just one component of it, in one of the four villages of the Pernem and Mandrem constituencies. If we read and break it down and ask questions, you’ll realize how appalling this template of development is.
Statement: This site has natural salt pans and existing village clusters. A model Goan village is proposed here showcasing daily life
Question: If the site has natural salt pans and existing clusters, why does one need a model Goan village, when by the project proponent’s own admission, a real Goan village exists. To see the local life of any place in the world, tourists go and mingle with locals in their natural surroundings. Artificial surroundings modeled on the real are never created and at this humungous cost. So why is the Goa government doing this?
Statement: The complex will also house a 100-room village hut accommodation with medical and rejuvenation centre targeted towards tourists looking for rejuvenation therapy.
Question: This is where the meat of the project lies. A hotel project is not unwelcome but it cannot be at the cost of the local environment. Secondly, why do rejuvenation centers be made as a part of mega Rs 100 crore project instead of merely assimilating the local surroundings, making the local stakeholders partners and have simple set ups. Can’t the mandarins of Goa tourism imagine rejuvenation and that too in a place which is naturally conducive, without spending thousands of crores?
Statement 3 Salt pans will be retained as a tourist attraction and history of salt museum to be a part of the attraction
Question: While the idea of salt pans as a tourist attraction is genuinely debatable and could go either way, do we need a salt pan museum when we have existing salt pans?
Let us not forget there are other components to this project as well like a boat docking and ferry terminal, a tree top hotel, a shipping museum, hotel complex and exhibition centre, an adventure sports island, an aquarium and bird park and a cable car system.
There has been no conversation or stakeholder engagement with the locals on feasibility and feedback, nor do we know of any Environment Impact Assessment being done. But even if one discount this for a moment because this crops up in any conflict between this model of rampant development and ecology, the big ask is the justification of building museums to preserve the naturalness of Goa.
While hotel rooms can always be pitched in a tourist destination like Goa, it has to be based on a genuine ratio of demand and availability. Also when a 100-room village hut accommodation, a tree top hotel and a hotel complex is planned, the resources, mainly ground water available to do this have to be mapped.
When destruction is the real motive of such projects involving massive construction, there emerges a severe irony. With the naturalness of Goa’s villages eroding at the altar of crores of rupees worth of projects, most cleared by this hacking Goa tool called the Investment Promotion Board, we perhaps need to create museums. Because aren’t museums a place where the extinct find a home, where the past is reserved. Our Goa is sadly on its way to the museum.
