CALANGUTE: The Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS) has claimed that the authorities are not acting on High Court orders permitting them to dismantle their shacks.

A large number of beach shack owners in the Calangute-Candolim beach-belt were left high and dry after the High Court of Bombay at Goa recently ordered that their shacks be sealed for operating without the consent-to-operate from the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB).

Some of the shacks had reopened after obtaining the consent-to-operate, but many of them decided not to reopen or get the consent-to-operate as there was only about a month left for the season to end, according to SOWS General Secretary John Lobo.

“Some of the shacks were sealed in the first week of April. They had made an appeal to the Tourism Department, GSPCB, and Collector as early as April 12, that they want to close for the season 2022-23, and hence their place should be de-sealed and they be permitted to dismantle their shack,” Lobo said in a statement on Monday.

“The honourable High Court on May 2 permitted that anyone who wants to dismantle their shack may be permitted to do so but that they won’t be permitted to operate the same,” he said.

He said it’s now 13 days that the beach shack operators are trying to get the shacks de-sealed so that they can be dismantled and all their furniture and other material can be shifted to a safe place before the onset of monsoon next month.

“All the departments are going in circles by passing the responsibility on the other department including the Collector’s and Deputy Collector’s office,” Lobo said, claiming that they’re being made to run around with none of the authorities taking the responsibility to de-seal their shacks.

“No one is taking the responsibility to de-seal. The government authorities are least bothered about the genuine Goans who are in the shack business,” he said.