MAPUSA
After a lull in the last two years, the new tourism season appears to be heading for a bonanza of sorts with Indian tourists making a beeline to the State.
The coastal belt of Calangute-Baga is choking with a heavy influx of tourists.
The long weekend following the Dussehra holiday has brought a hoard of Indian tourists who drive in with their vehicles and put tremendous pressure on the road infrastructure.
Most of the tourists are from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. People from Kerala and Gujarat also make a beeline to the coastal state.
For the last three days, the main roads around Calangute and Baga were chockablock with vehicles giving a hard time to the tourists and locals alike.
Despite steps taken to regulate traffic in the coastal village, there were traffic snarls at almost every road stretch on the main Calangute road. The situation becomes worse when the huge outstation buses with tourists enter the narrow village roads which bring the traffic flow to a standstill.
Sirman Chaturvedi, a tourist who had come from Delhi along with four others, said they had to wait for almost an hour to move from Calangute to Baga as the thick traffic did not allow them to proceed directly.
“We never expected a traffic jam here. The traffic is a complete mess here. We couldn’t even find parking space so that we could move around on feet,” Chaturvedi said.
Sitakant Nayak, inspector in-charge of Traffic Police, Calangute informed that they were used to the influx of tourists at weekends but this week there was huge influx of visitors from Wednesday onward on account of the Dussehra holiday.
“There is no proper parking facility here. The biggest challenge is to find some places for parking in the village. We have spoken to the sarpanch who is in touch with some owners so that some parking arrangement can be worked out. For the moment, we are managing by regulating the traffic but we have the entire season ahead of us,” Nayak said.
With monsoon on the wane and the fear of Covid dissipating, the inflow of the tourists is expected to only increase in days and months to come.
The authorities need to get their act together so that tourists enjoy their holiday and take good memories back home and the local residents are not made to suffer on account of the influx of tourists.
Calangute Sarpanch Joseph Sequeira informed that the panchayat along with the traffic police have already started taking action on illegal parking on the road side.
“From today, panchayat officials along with the traffic police have started clamping vehicles for illegal parking and issuing fines against those who disobey traffic rules. We have also decided not to allow any big vehicles especially buses inside the village roads which results in huge traffic jams,” Sequeira said.
He also said plans were afoot to create a parking space at Bodko-vodd at the outskirts of the village.
He further said that as a long-term solution, the village panchayat was working on a plan to construct a new bus-stand cum market complex outside the Calangute village.
