In 2006, an event company from England in collaboration with an Indian company organized a festival called The Big Chill in Goa. It was the first of its kind in the state and there were a lot of hiccups, which led to the organisers deciding not to return to India. In 2007, Sunburn was organized for the first time in Goa. 2015 will mark the ninth edition of the festival, as well as the third edition of Supersonic, another festival held along the same lines.
Sadly, despite there being festivals being held in Goa for almost a decade now, the government machinery has yet to get its act together in terms of the collection of dues and the proper organization of amenities around the festival premises. The failure to collect over 2.3 crore rupees in dues is what has prompted the High Court of Bombay in Goa to admonish the State, stating that all dues have to be recovered within three months, impose an interest of 15 per cent and even levy penalties, if need be.
The Court has also directed the State to adjust the security deposits against charges for local police deployment and other facilities put in place. There is also the matter of an investigation into the use of drugs at the festivals with relation to two deaths that have occurred. A compliance report within six months will detail this investigation. Lastly, the court also directed the organisers to arrange for adequate parking space and also have a helpline number for grievances.
India is in the middle of a festival phase and, apart from the usual events like Sunburn, Supersonic, NH7, as well as state sponsored festivals like Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh, there new festivals cropping up regularly. Goa is easily accessible to music and art aficionados from Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and other towns and cities, it’s inevitable that it will turn into a coveted location. When you add a great holiday around the festival, the appeal factor goes up.
This is what the government of Goa should take cognisance of. It is high time that a policy is created, either within the framework of the tourism policy or a stand-alone one. This policy needs to have a single window system for permissions and other documentation, a subsidiary of the department of tourism as the nodal agency. The department needs to co-ordinate with law enforcement, the panchayats and other authorities to ensure the smooth functioning of the festival. The parameters laid down by the High Court in their recent order can serve as the foundation of this policy.
The State government needs to get its act together and realise that in a modern day setting, a single window system and a proper policy for entertainment events within the state are a necessity. Whether it’s a state-sponsored or a privately organized event, the parameters need to be the same, they need to be enforced and they need to be sans bureaucratic red tape and devoid of the stink of corruption.
If all this falls in place, the High Court order that effectively raps the government of Goa on its knuckles would never happen again.
