Going desi on Goa’s beaches
On a high from the BJP’s 2012 election performance which far outweighed expectations, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had said Goa could easily attract six million tourists a year. Previous governments had failed to work to even half that potential or provide the required infrastructure, was his assessment. There’s no doubt Goa could attract more than six million tourists whatever the government’s agenda, competence or the colour and tenor of its political ideology. Tourism happened to Goa despite the incompetence and misplaced priorities of all its governments. The point is, are the figures that are being projected desirable, sustainable or even economically beneficial to this state in the long run considering how the sheer numbers that descend here in the year-end tax the infrastructure and ruin the environment?
In Calangute and other major tourist spots in the north Goa coast, hoteliers and restaurateurs are being done out of legitimate business by the hordes just driving down in cars from states across the border. Even a small Maruti 800 is packed with five persons and bartans of cooked food and drinking water to boot. It’s certainly churning resentment as both the local MLA Michael Lobo and other political players around have conceded. But apart from taking note of this disconcerting development—obviously increasingly on the rise over the years—there’s little they can do. Lobo who comes from the ruling side wants the local panchayat to take action against domestic tourists who offload their gear, cook on roadsides and make themselves very comfortable anywhere in Goa, leaving behind the litter, the trademark of Indian travellers. The panchayat in turn asks—and quite rightly so—under what law is it supposed to act? If the government were to empower it, it could perhaps slap on a heavy tax on domestic tourists who come down by road to just take in the sights and sounds but make little or no use at all of the accommodation or eating places.
In the broader context of the tourism industry which has come to represent the mainstay of the Goan economy given the collapse of the scandal riddled mining sector, such localised concerns may appear trivial to the government. But indeed, they are not. The Travel and Tourism Association of Goa which had celebrated the change in the state government has of late joined the chorus of the disillusioned. After 21 months at the pilot’s wheel, the Manohar Parrikar government has done little to set right the basics that continue to hound the dog-eared industry. The most visible of course are the garbage and the pathetic condition of the roads.
Though the large numbers of domestic arrivals make for attractive statistics in official data, there is palpable disappointment in tourism circles that the BJP government is getting its strategy all wrong. This not from a lack of understanding the concerns of the industry, but because the chief minister, preoccupied with political strategising and staying relevant for the 2014 gameplan, seems to have totally ceded the portfolio to the incompetence of the minister in charge.
And so it has been a year of rural India invading the beaches of Goa and driving away the foreigners who otherwise cling to the sunbed. Mostly budget tourists, the rural visitors packed on their buses, tempos and traxs are headed for the ‘Goa holiday’ of their dreams. It matters little that they have to spend the night in the open or eat from paper plates. The cheaper the better. When you look at the rest of India, you understand why litter on what was once pristine white sands is no aberration to a domestic tourist.
