The Goa government on Thursday approved amendments to the Tourist Trade Act that will allow authorities to impose a fine of Rs 2,000 or jail tourists who cause “public nuisance”, Hindustan Times reported. Tourists defying the law in large groups face a fine of Rs 10,000.
“Nobody can carry bottles or drink alcohol on our beaches and tourist places,” said Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar after a Cabinet meeting. “Food also cannot be cooked in the open. All these offences will attract a fine of Rs 2,000. If the fine is not paid, the scale of offence registered will increase. The offender can be arrested and imprisoned for three months.”
The amendments will be tabled during the three-day Budget session of the state Assembly.
“It’s not that we can stop low-end tourists from coming to Goa,” said Savio Messias, president of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa. “But you have to control the behaviour of tourists. When Indians go overseas, they won’t be spitting around the place or running around without proper clothes or drinking on the roads and what not.”
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar had announced in July that the government was considering imposing hefty fines on people who drink in public places and litter. Ajgaonkar had then said that only disciplined “good tourists” were welcome in the coastal state.
In February, the tourism minister had said he would “chase away” tourists who do not care about “Goan culture and Goanness”. He had made the remarks after the state’s Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai stirred a controversy by calling domestic tourists “scum of the earth” and claiming that North Indian tourists were trying to “create a Haryana in Goa”.
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