SORRY, LUNCH IS OVER
A midday government operation to get shacks to fall in line with CRZ rules led to foreign tourists being ejected from their lunch tables one day last week. As shacks operators fume at the government treatment, tourists threaten not to return to Goa. GUILHERME ALMEIDA revisits Majorda-Utorda to find that tourists are threatening not to return to Goa
It was lunch time as usual for these tourists from the UK and other countries on this bright and sunny January 14. Men, women and children were lunching in the few shacks dotting Majorda beach and others were relaxing under beach umbrellas. The appearance on the beach of tourism officials with the men in khaki in tow did not perturb them. They couldn’t imagine that they would, within a few minutes, be forced to leave their lunch uneaten and be made to move from under the shade of the umbrellas.
But that is what happened. Even as they sat there, government officials got the shack owners to stop operations and dismantle the beach umbrellas. Within minutes, all the shack operations came to a halt and the beach umbrellas lay dismantled on the beach, leaving the tourists under the blazing afternoon sun.
Ejected from the shacks, some stunned and aggrieved tourists protested, while others threatened to bid goodbye to the land of sun, sand and music never to return back.
“We have spent money to come to this beautiful land, but we have realised now that we cannot be here. It is not kind of Goa to not allow us to be on the beach. The police said go off from here and we are going off now,” said an elderly UK national after the Tourism Department cracked a whip on the shack operations.
A journalist from UK, Rosie Waterhouse blamed the government for the failure to make available the amenities for waste and sewage disposal on the beach.
“The shack owner pays for the licence, but the amenities are not in place. What is the government doing? Such an attitude will ruin tourism in Goa,” warned Waterhouse, who has been visiting Goa and spending her holidays on Majorda beach for the last 15 years.
Many other beleaguered tourists, who were caught in the crossfire between the government and the shack owners, appeared agitated. “We visit this place because we love Goa. Why did the authorities do this to us?” asked another tourist.
Shack owner Bella Monteiro said the Tourism Department action does not augur well for the tourism season already hit by low tourist arrivals. “I only hope these tourists do not fulfill their threat of going to countries such as Cambodia and Thailand after this incident. This will adversely affect everyone, including the common man,” she said. Monteiro made a plea to the people in general and the politicians in particular to support the cause for Goa and its people.
Majorda resident and vice-president of the United Goans Democratic Party, Adv Radharao Gracias, has slammed the Tourism Department for this operation on Majorda beach. “Firstly, the officials and the police had no business to stop the shack operations when the tourists were having lunch. Secondly, the Tourism Department has clearly misinterpreted the National Green Tribunal order, which pertained to shacks in private properties. The shacks erected on the beaches are guided by a policy approved by the High Court,” Gracias asserted.
President of the Goa Shack Owners’ Welfare Society Cruz Cardozo took strong exception to the manner in which the authorities went about their task on Majorda beach on January 14. “Why should the tourists come to Goa if we don’t take care of them? In the Majorda case, the principle of natural justice was not followed. They gave them seven days to rectify, but stopped the shacks in less than 24 hours. This is not acceptable,” Cardozo said.
Cardozo also demanded to know whether the government authorities would have moved with the same alacrity in respect of the starred hotels which are involved in discharging sewage waste in the rivers.
