Team Herald
PANJIM: King Momo Bruno Azaredo read out his decree of fun and frolic on Saturday, but for the thousands of revellers who had lined up the Carnival parade route, there were also lessons of social issues that the colourful parade brought them.
With this year’s Carnival theme being ‘Clean and Beautiful Goa’, many floats had messages on the environment, quite a few around the theme of open defecation free and garbage free State. One of these floats, presented by anti-coal activists demanded ‘No Coal Hub’ in Goa, while others called out to ‘Save Our Bonvol Lake’, ‘Kalapur PDA Naka’, ‘Save Hills & Fields,’ ‘Amche Goem NITOLL Sambalum-ia’, making Carnival a platform to spread messages on burning issues.
The float parade was flagged off by Tourism Minister Manohar Azgaonkar in the presence of Panjim Mayor Surendra Furtado. The King Momo tableau led the parade, and sources said around 15,000 to 20,000 people, including tourists, witnessed it. The parades in other cities would be held from Sunday onwards.
Corporation of the City of Panaji said they received 83 entries under five categories with Goa Police participating for the first time. The police float attempted to create awareness on the use of helmets, following traffic rules, dialling 100 while in distress and sending out a message against alcohol consumption and smoking in public places.
As the floats wound their way along the route, activists, along with few others including children from Camrabhat, in the outskirts of Panjim, took out a rally with banners regarding the St Inez creek, walking along peacefully on the other side of the parade route.
Police Department had tightened security arrangements, while traffic police were deployed at every point to ensure smooth flow of traffic.
