CALANGUTE: Trouble has been brewing for beach shack owners in the Calangute-Candolim as most of them haven’t received consent-to-operate from the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) till date thus putting them on tenterhooks.
They feared the worst almost 22 beach shacks in the Anjuna-Vagator beach-belt were sealed on Friday.
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The strucures were sealed following a high court order directing to seal 175 illegal structures in Anjuna-Caisua.
Shack owners claim their shacks were sealed even though they had the tourism department licence issued only in November and other permissions and had applied to the GSPCB for consent-to-operate.
Only 10%, of the nearly 200 shacks in Calangute-Candolim have received consent-to-operate from the GSPCB, according to John Lobo, general secretary of the Shack Owners Welfare Society (SOWS). He said last year, a large number of shacks in Calangute-Candolim were sealed as they did not have the consent-to-operate.
However, this season, the village panchayats of Calangute and Candolim had made arrangements to collect sewage from beach shacks to enable shack owners to apply to the GSPCB. Despite this, the GSPCB has delayed in giving consent-to-operate to most of the shacks, Lobo said.
“The GSPCB is simply delaying it. They’re taking this matter very lightly. There seems to be a hidden agenda to finish the shack owners. All the shacks have applied to the GSPCB, but very few have got the consent-to-operate. There has been no communication from the GSPCB to shack owners about the reason for the delay in consent-to-operate. Why are they delaying when shacks have all other permissions,” John Lobo said.
Shack owners are now apprehensive that there could be a repeat of last year’s season when beach shacks had been sealed in April for operating without the consent-to-operate, stakeholders said.
During the ongoing season, many applicants who got shacks during the draw of lots in November, opted out and refused to paying the licence fee because of the two months delay. Some opted out even after paying the licence fee anticipating delays by the GSPCB. “There’s a conspiracy to finish beach shacks because only locals get them,” shack owners claimed.
