CANACONA: Agonda Sarpanch Navnita Naik Gaonkar on Wednesday hailed Agonda as one of the beautiful and clean beaches in Goa but regretted that the beach is losing its charisma on account of the illegal structures coming up each year.
Gaonkar was addressing a special press conference at Agonda panchayat office to furnish information regarding demolition of the illegal shacks and structures which was scheduled to be held on Monday (December 5) at Agonda by the Deputy Collector of Canacona following compliants from the residents.
She further said it’s sad to note that Agonda beach has been saturated by travellers and hawkers. It is sometimes difficult to walk up the beach during high tide due to the restaurants jutting into the cresting waves. Nevertheless, there are enough restaurants, bars and a few shops to cater your needs.
Reacting to Herald’s last week report on 50 percent illegal structures, Gaonkar informed that no licences nor NOCs have been issued to any of the structures at Agonda beach so far and all structures are illegal and added saying that she supports to NOC issue as people are suffering due to these illegal structures.
With the tourism season already on, she informed that around 70-80 files are pending this year as they have not received any permission from National Green Tribunal (NGT) and CRZ authority and due to this the pachayat has suffered a revenue loss of around Rs ten lakh this year.
Many businessmen, who had put up their structures last year, failed to obtain any clearance certificate from the panchayat, informed panch Tipu Pagui. Both Gaonkar and Pagui said that they are in favour of seasonal businessman because they are spending a lot of money on their infrastructure and other development works. The season has already commenced and if licences are not granted then they run into huge losses, they added.
The sarpanch further informed that around 30 licences were issued shacks and around 150 licences were issued to huts last year, but this year till date not a single license has been issued. Speaking to Herald, Deputy Collector Kedar Naik said that so far no licence has been issued to any of the shack owners in the coastal areas of the taluka.
“We will not issue any licence till we get directions from NGT and CRZ,” the Deputy collector said.
