Tourism Minister Manohar Babu Ajgaonkar, can you explain how you are going to recover the outstanding dues that the organisers of Sunburn owe the State. We ask this since you haven’t managed to settle past accounts for nearly three years and still you have gone ahead with yet another Sunburn. And can Ajgaonkar explain the gusto and energy with which the EDM was announced, giving an ‘all-is-sorted’ appearance?
You are only trying to cover your sins of omission by holding the media responsible for Sunburn’s exit. On the contrary, the tourism minister must blame his miscalculation or rather failure to collect dues to a tune of Rs 2 crore. The EDM was only one of the desperate 11th hour measures to salvage losses suffered on account of a dismal tourism season. Sunburn is recalled not because Goans demanded it.
It is amusing, in the first place, that the government decided to go ahead with the festival even without clarity knowing that payments are being challenged in three appellate forums. Even before Sunburn Klassique could take off, Harindra Singh, Chairman & Managing Director of Percept Limited made it clear that the government owed them more than what they had to pay back. The equation was clear as daylight. And it only meant that Ajgaonkar was hoping his hotchpotch arrangement to fructify. Let us not forget that the High Court had allowed Percept Live the right to challenge dues amounting to nearly Rs 2 crore, which the company owes to the state government in the form of fees and taxes.
It is obvious that the Sunburn Klassique experiment miserably failed to get the response that was expected, and the EDM came nowhere close to the popular Sunburn held in earlier years.
Tourism Minister’s statement of not allowing organisers to get away with the money they owe the government is an empty promise which has been replayed several times. He has not only allowed the organisers a free run, but has gone ahead granting NOCs in undue haste. We may recall the time when Ajgaonkar was approached by this newspaper a week ahead of the announcement asking to shed light on the re-entry of Sunburn. Ajgaonkar not only denied any such plans, but firmly reiterated that unless the issue of pending dues is sorted, any new proposal will not be considered. Seven days later, Sunburn makes a Klassique entry and Ajgaonkar makes a classic U-turn.
The tourism minister takes pride in the fact that he has collected Rs 56 lakhs as advance for the February EDM. What he doesn’t explain is how the outstanding dues are going to be recovered. In July 2018, Ajgaonkar had submitted a written reply in the Assembly saying that Sunburn owed money to the State to the tune of Rs 1.93 crore. It’s time the tourism minister spells out the math.
