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Goa Tourism Minister orders shutting down of all private watersports counters

Tuesday, February 14, 2023

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A surprise visit was paid by Goa Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte to Calangute beach and Vagator beach on Sunday where he noticed that some watersports operators were fleecing tourists and not following the queue system.


Reacting to the scenario, the Tourism Minister ordered officials to shut down all private watersports counters and to set up a government-backed counter to streamline operations.


The Minister asked Goa Electronics Limited (GEL) to setup a watersports counter at Calangute after registering all the private water sports operators. “Put the GEL counter for watersports immediately. The GEL official will manage the queue system,” said Khaunte who is also Minister for Information Technology.


The surprise inspection comes in after Khaunte and Calangute MLA Michael Lobo met with chief minister Pramod Sawant to discuss the way tourism activities are conducted along the North Goa coastline recently.


While interacting interacted with a group of tourists, Khaunte happened to come across an instance where the tourists were being overcharged for parasailing. The tourists claimed that the operator quoted a price of Rs 3,000 for a parasailing ride even though the tariff has been fixed at Rs 800 for the ride.


The minister immediately ordered police officials to seize all record books of the watersports operators and to shut down all watersports counters at the beach. He also directed Goa police and tourism officials to stop all illegal activities on the beach area.


Asking tourism department officials and Goa police to submit a report on the illegalities noticed along the beach stretch, Khaunte took stock of the number of beach beds laid by each shack.


The tourism minister also paid attention on the deck beds and tables put out by the shack operators and told local police to keep a watch so that the deck beds do not exceed the area demarcated for the respective shacks. At the same time, the minister told the police and the panchayat officials not to harass or inconvenience the tourists and to instead give the shack operators a day’s time to correct infractions.

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