Dristhi keeps our beaches free of garbage a question that however needs to be asked is where do the 322 staff that is employs for beach cleaning and where do the staff employed as life guards go to answer natures call?
http://epaper.heraldgoa.in/Details.aspx?id=32778&boxid=14534806&uid=&dat=12/30/2017
How can a foreign national be allowed to run and business enterprise in Goa? what visa does he hold? Just because he has put up a stall for juice does it become legitimate? He may not be convicted and the reasons for that may well be the police and drug mafia nexus . But to allow him to run any sort of business enterprise especially at an EDM venue leaves a bad after taste.
http://epaper.heraldgoa.in/Details.aspx?id=32762&boxid=142849577&uid=&dat=12/30/2017
It should be the duty of the state government to have public toilets, showers and bathing areas as part of civic amenities on all beaches. They can even charge a small fee for the use of these facilities. It will be then that we will see cleaner beaches.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/salcetes-beaches-turn-into-open-toilets/articleshow/62287446.cms
A morning walk along Salcete’s Colva-Cavelossim beach stretch is quickly turning into a revolting experience as people, including tourists and allegedly shack staff, use the sand dunes as open toilets.
President of the Shack Owners Welfare Society of Goa, Cruz Cardozo, said it is easy to blame the shack staff and questioned lack of facilities for Drishti lifeguards all along this belt. Also, the government does not pay attention to the tourists who come to the state in droves in buses and other vehicles, who tend to use the beach for urination and defecation, he added.
“After receiving complaints about open defecation along the beach stretch, I inspected the Cavelossim beach. Here I found women relieving themselves in the shrubbery on the sand dunes. But shacks do not engage women,” he said.
Shacks have built makeshift toilets, Cardozo said.
The Goa State Pollution Control Board, however, raised questions over how and where the human refuse that’s collected in tanks in the makeshift toilets was disposed.
Pollution board member secretary Levinson Martins said there is no consensus between the tourism department and the pollution board over the responsibility to monitor the scientific disposal of human waste.
Tourism director Menino D’Souza told TOI that his department is only the licensing authority and that pollution falls in the domain of the board as “they have the equipment and infrastructure to monitor and carry out inspections”.
Terming the issue as serious, Martins said a mechanism is needed to be worked out between all authorities and that instead of blaming the pollution board, cases could be reported by any authority or department based on which violators could be booked under the Goa, Daman and Diu Public Health Act.
The health department can also conduct inspections, Martins said.
Shack owner Edwin Barreto said the government should have a sewage pipeline or connect shacks to the Jica sewerage system along the coastal belt.
Annually, the state receives about 50-55 lakh domestic tourists and 5-6 lakh foreign tourist. Is Goa really geared for such an intake? and this year we say that the tourists arrivals have dipped . Rightly so, with prices in Goa going as high as they are, tourists are preferring cheaper and cleaner destinations
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/tourist-footfalls-drop-on-christmas-eve-hotels-see-30-dip-in-occupancy/articleshow/62273761.cms
The government has to get their act together and reach a consensus on EDM’s and rave parties once and for all for no amount of check and balances can ensure these festivals to be drug free.
Although the total number of tourists have fallen this season, the Russian chartered tourists have witnessed a slight increase. However a question must be asked, does charter tourism really help the Goan economy? these tourists buy the package in the sending country and only a mere 13% comes into our economy.
http://www.navhindtimes.in/more-russian-chartered-tourists-in-goa-this-season/
