MARGAO
Saying that the Tourism Master Plan 2018 and Tourism Policy 2018 is not only replete with anomalies, but is also anti-Goa and Goemkars, Congress MLA Reginaldo Lourenco on Thursday said he has requested Tourism Minister Babu Ajgaonkar to get the consultant to re-draft the report after conducting a detailed and proper survey.
He further demanded that the report should be placed before all the stakeholders, including gram sabhas of all the village panchayats, all Municipal bodies, political representatives, civil society activists, indigenous and rural communities before sending the modified draft to all the 40 MLAs for a discussion.
Addressing the media on Thursday, Reginaldo demanded to know the need to rope in a foreign consultant to prepare an important plant and that too without any discussions with the vital bodies and the people of Goa.
“The credibility of the source of data procured by the consultant is questionable. The report is silent on the exact income/revenue generated by the Tourism industry in Goa and how much of its percolates to local Goans. There was no assessment of the socio-economic and socio-cultural impact of the master plan/policy. And, there was no assessment of environmental impact of the tourism development proposals”, Reginaldo told the media.
Saying that the draft master plan/policy report enables privatisation of Goa Tourism Development Corporation’s assets, Reginaldo said this is condemnable in every respect, while calling for the reconsideration of the setting up of a so-called autonomous Goa Tourism Board.
Referring to the report on the relocation of offshore casinos to a more appropriate location, taking the opportunity to create an internal gaming cluster, Reginaldo said “sad, promoting casinos all round and now proposed casinos towns has become alpha and omega for Goa Tourism. It seems casinos are the lifelines
of Tourism department of the state”, and demanding to know why does Goa need casinos when it is blessed with natural wonders, heritage sites, cultural beauty etc.
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Reginaldo demands probe into frequent breakdown of Selaulim water pipeline
MARGAO: The Curtorim MLA has demanded an inquiry into the frequent breakdown of the Selaulim water pipeline, even as he said that curtailing the Budget session of the Goa Legislative Assembly is a blot on the democracy in the State.
“There’s an urgent need to order a probe into the breakdown of the water pipeline to find out whether there was any sabotage or whether there are technical issues that need to be resolved by the PWD,” Reginaldo told the media.
The Congress MLA pointed out that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar used to boast of holding the Assembly session for 50 days, saying that curtailing the Budget session will not help good governance to the people of Goa.
“Parrikar used to criticise the Congress for holding the session for 15 days. He should now explain what has prompted him to curtail the Assembly session, that to a Budget session,” he questioned.
