Outside event organisers taking Goa govt on a tailspin

Goa is gradually waking up to a few truths about event companies from outside the State trying to capitalise on brand Goa to make profits by caring a damn to local regulations and obviously its people.

Let us start with a few examples, and the latest ones first:

1. A few days ago, social media was abuzz that a festival called Glowfest, a lantern festival, was to be organised on May 25, 2024 at Morjim beach which is a declared turtle nesting site.

Investigations, a government memorandum and a media statement by the Tourism Director revealed that no permission had been granted for such a festival.

Yet, tickets went on sale, with no permissions in place, and it was stated through social media that tickets would be refunded.

Incidentally, on the same day that the event was called off in Goa, a BBC report from the UK stated that four events of a similar nature, in different counties, were being postponed due to bad weather and tickets were being refunded.

The fliers used for the events in the UK were similar to the ones being used in Goa.

2. A few months prior to this, a jungle festival was organised, not on Morjim beach, but on a hill in Morjim, where complaints of illegal deforestation were filed by locals and NGOs.

The jungle fest had tagged along the Department of Tourism, and tried to promote the festival as an event that would benefit children whilst on social media, the organisers sold it as a musical event.

This time though, the Director of Tourism, who is an IAS officer, selectively released a press communiqué to wash off the department’s hands rather than accept that they were misled.

3. In the beginning of the tourist season, and somewhere around the month of October, the organisers of Sunburn started selling tickets for their festival without even booking the venue – forget about getting permissions.

According to the High Court of Bombay at Goa, it was clear that the organisers went ahead with the first day of the 2023 event without any permission and were therefore ordered to pay everything before start of the next day.

The modus operandi is such: First, the names of the artistes are released, followed by the starting of sales. All along no attempts are made to get any permission. As usual, the organisers wait for the last day to seek permission.

These signals by major event organisers from outside the State have given teeth to small timers who organise rave parties on the beaches belonging to the Department of Tourism – with the latter feigning ignorance of them, even when deaths have been reported during such parties.

That the government of Goa can be taken on a tailspin by outsiders is a sad reflection of not only our government, but of us, because, in the end, it is we who choose who should govern us.

World markets want to step into India because of the wealth of our population, and the drug market will not be the last, but was probably the first to realise our country’s potential, and hence the reason why marijuana and cannabis was made illegal at the behest of USA years ago.

Sadly, Goa is literally offering its shores to drug peddlers. Right from the kids in the hinterlands to sons of politicians to even politicians, drugs have crept everywhere and it is only a question of whose addiction is first detected.

Festivals that are held in Goa without obtaining permissions till the eleventh hour or sometimes without permissions at all allegedly spin on dirty money of drugs and those on the spin are, sadly, our very own.

There will come a day when we will leave behind a Goa with no environment for the future generations, but imagine leaving a generation addicted to drugs and no place to run for succour.

To sin is human, but to sin constantly is not divine. This realisation could change the course of our futuristic thinking. Better late than never!