Team Herald
MARGAO: A day after local panchayat members and tourism stakeholders stopped the installation of a kiosk to manage watersports activities on Cavelossim beach, officials from Goa Electronics Limited (GEL) sought police protection to help them erect the kiosk at the spot and began operating the queue system for watersports on Friday.
A few watersports operators gathered at the site and threatened to go on an agitation against the government’s ‘dadagiri’.Speaking to reporters, Dixon Vaz, Sarpanch of Cavelossim, said that the government did not even take the local body into confidence and said that the panchayat will not cooperate with the government. “How have the authorities erected this kiosk on the beach without the permission of the panchayat?” he questioned. He also claimed that the business of the water sports operators will be reduced to 30 to 40 percent of what they are used to, due to the queue system mooted by the government.
The Sarpanch asked why the Tourism Department was not handling the system, and had brought in a third party to run the kiosk. “We will make sure that such things do not happen. The kiosk erected at the beach is illegal and the panchayat has not issued permission to the concerned party. This will not benefit the local watersports operators,” he claimed.
Roy Barretto, a watersports operator, said that a meeting of all the stakeholders has been called to deliberate on the issue.
“We will not allow such a thing to happen at Cavelossim. We will start an agitation,” said Barretto.
A heavy police force was deployed at the site till late in the evening, in order to prevent a law-and-order situation. The tourism stakeholders who gathered at the site slammed the government’s show of force and called it an attempt to dissuade local Goans from flourishing in the tourism sector.
