The 5-day break from work greatly helped by holidays on either side, emanating into long week-end, no doubt provided a golden opportunity for the tourists mostly domestic to queue up for their favourite destination to Goa but equally and painfully proved to be a nightmare for the locals. We heave a sigh of relief that this ordeal would end up on Monday for the time being.
Many of us must have been caught up in the traffic jams in the city on all these days since there was a terrific surge in vehicles converging into this tiny state from all over the country, which could be glimpsed through the number plates. Likewise there was a big rush in restaurants with scores of people lining up for seating accommodation in these eateries. The sprawling beaches and the market places were another ocean of humanity. The harrowing parking problem became even worse with the additional vehicles.
What might have been the state of affairs in the hotels for room booking one cannot perceive. The bus fares reached monumental height rising by 3-4 times and many tourists preferred to travel by tourist vehicles and taxis and others by their own cars, surging the road traffic immensely.
In less than two months from now there will be the decennial event called exposition, another tourist attraction, likely to cause even worse impact on the residents, not for 5 days as in the instant case but for 44 days. What we have failed to realise is that it is not the spurt in occasional tourist arrivals of this kind that is the cause of concern, in fact it is a blessing for the state which is heavily dependent on the tourism industry for its economy; rather it is the inadequacy of infrastructure that is the cause of trouble.
There is no much change in the roadways, which should have been enhanced to multi-lanes years ago. Widening of any road whether interior or highway is met with stiff opposition all the time. The accommodation for housing such influx of tourists should have been increased over the years but it is regretted that even when there are demands for putting up large hotel projects there is blind opposition citing narrow approach roads, inadequate water supply, unsteady electricity and so on. Instead of seeking augmentation of these resources, we delight in opposing anything that is suggested.
We welcome the tourists and we too visit places of interest in other states but we want the infrastructure to maintain pace with the tourist boom.
