PANAJI
The group of around a hundred shack owners camped outside the tourism department and shouted slogans against Chief Minister, Tourism Minister, NGT as well as the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA).
They taunted the government for bending over backward for the big hotels and other large industrial lobbies but remained unconcerned about the plight of the ‘true sons of the soil’.
“There’s only one mistake we made while submitting our shack applications. We should have also applied for casino licences. If we were to do that, our applications would be processed the very next day,” Cruz Cardozo President of the All Goa Shack Owner Welfare Society has said sarcastically.
“We are the last among the tourism industries that is solely managed and run by Goans and yet we are harassed the most. There are 12-13 licences that are to be secured and none of them have been given yet,” Cardozo said.
“Others come carry out their business all the year round, and not a single government licence is sought from them,” he lamented.
The shack owners who first held a meeting before proceeding to hold their protest have demanded that the government compensate them for the two months of business that they have lost.
“We will continue our protests against the government. Today it is in Panaji, tomorrow it will be at Calangute and from there we will go to other places. We will continue protesting till our shack licences are allotted,” Cardozo said.
Their slogans against the government included taunts at an unnamed person ‘Chhota Bheem’ as well as the fact that the government only bows down to Nigerians, Lamanis, Kashmiris as well as big hoteliers and the casino lobby. Shack licences are yet to be issued with the government yet to approve the policy despite the tourist season being well underway, as evident from the traffic jams along the arterial roads of the State.
