MARGAO
With the law-enforcement completely missing, domestic tourists continue to throng the state’s beaches sans masks and throw social-distancing norms to the wind, even as challan-issuing revenue officials have been virtually left to face the fury of the visitors.
Unlike the past, during the initial days of the lockdown, when the then District Police Chief, SP Arvind Gawas, had dealt firmly with violators for not wearing masks by drafting the men-in-uniform to enforce Covid guidelines, deploying Mamlatdar staff to rein in the violators seem to be not working.
Making matters worse for the revenue officials they have been drafted for the enforcement duties sans police protection, exposing them to unruly tourists.
In fact, Wednesday witnessed an incident at Colva beach when a team of Salcete mamlatdar officials came face to face with a group of tourists, who were not wearing masks.
Salcete Mamlatdar Prataprao Gaonkar said the revenue officials have to face the brunt of the visitors as the latter get into arguments, even going to the extent of filming the incident.
“When my team reported the incident to me and uploaded a video of the incident, I told them to return to the office. I will report the matter to my higher officials for information and further action,” Gaonkar said.
Revenue officials in private pointed out that the decision to entrust the task of enforcing the social distancing norms to the revenue officials has its own drawbacks in the absence of police protection.
“We have come across hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors descending on the beach belt majority of whom are without the mandatory masks. The revenue officials, who have the power to challan, are at the receiving end of these visitors who come in groups,” an official said.
That’s not all. Officials wondered why the police have not been drafted for the job of enforcing the Covid guidelines when they had done an excellent job of enforcing the wearing of masks during the initial days of the lockdown.
“When Colva beach plays host to both local police as well as the tourist police, the men-in-uniform could have done the job of imposing fines much better than the revenue officials,” sources said.
The Goan had reported on Sunday how visitors descend on the world-famous beach belt without masks right under the nose of the authorities, with neither the Colva police nor the Tourist police anywhere around to crack a whip against the violators.
