PANAJI
The police in Calangute, the tourism heartland of the State, is planning to take on the unsavoury activities of touts, starting with creating a database after it netted 34 such operating to market dubious services to visitors last week.
According to the Calangute Police Inspector Paresh Naik, local elected representatives have been complaining that tourists are being fleeced by the touts which prompted them to launch the drive and round them up under the Goa Tourist Trade Act, 1982 over the last few days.
The issue of touts, promoting dubious services like masseur services and other grey activities in the tourist belt had also reverberated at the top political level including in the Goa legislative assembly, prompting Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte to admonish the police for failing to curb the menace, specially in the Calangute area.
Naik said, the drive to nab more touts will continue and the process of creating a database of those already arrested is on so that they can be proceeded against under the Trade and Tourism Act.
A first time offender is fined Rs 5,000, under the tourist trade law and it spikes to Rs 50,000 for the second time. A third offence can attract a jail term.
Promotion of 'dance bars' by these touts is another sensitive area the Calangute police have faced much flak on. In early January, locals from the area had launched an agitation against the proliferation of these 'dance bars' in the Baga-Calangute belth where they say drug abuse and even prostitution is being allegedly promoted.
