Goa, Christians against tourism plan that "destroys people and resources"
The local government has approved the "Goa Tourism Master Plan and Policy 2016". It will beach resorts for daytime leisure and nighttime entertainment for holidaymakers. "The plan only considers the promotion of trade and profits." Unbridled tourism has already caused river pollution, poisoning fish. "The casino culture has destroyed families".
Panaji (AsiaNews) - A Christian organization is campaigning against the proposed Goa tourism plan for the current year, because it "destroys people and the State".
Recently the State Department for Tourism approved the "Goa Tourism Master Plan and Policy 2016", a package of initiatives that want to transform the area into a tourist attraction.
Fr. Maverick Fernandes, from the Centre for Responsible Tourism (CRT), tells AsiaNews that the project "was to ensure the development of an ethical and non-exploitative tourism focusing on planning, regulation, coordination, research, protection, education and awareness. It was to strengthen the institutions and local capacities. Instead it only considers the promotion of trade and profits".
The new plan maps out the construction of beach resorts for daytime leisure and nighttime entertainment for holidaymakers. Fr. Fernandes complains that in this way the "authorities of Goa have decided to sell the state and the people who live here. The government project is just going to open the doors to tourism, without evening trying to understand what would happen to the coastal region or hinterland".
Bosco de Sousa Eremita, a Catholic journalist, adds: "Although officially the plan has been decided for the good of the population, the first objective is to guarantee profits to businessmen. The local population will be the last to reap some benefit. Many have already closed their shops and left their homes in the west of the country. This year 27 thousand Catholics from Goa (90% of the total) will move elsewhere”.
Hermit reports that already the State "is ultra-exploited. Our resources are polluted. The Mandovi River fish are toxic because of the savage treatment of the waters, polluted by the city drains and casinos that overlook the river. "
Goa, he adds, "has already lost a generation because our young people follow the dominant trends. In the race to accumulate money, they lose themselves in the vortex of drugs, the rapes and murders ".
Also, the lives of families are destroyed, because "the culture of now is part and parcel of the casinos and is reducing families to poverty." "But no one cares - concludes the journalist - and it seems that the government is multiplying the promotion of these vices, oblivious of the impact they have on the population." (SD)
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