Camping, large car park sites soon in Goa for low-budget tourists: Parrikar

Panaji, Dec 14 (IANS) Caravan park-like facilities will be created in the coastal tourism-friendly pockets in Goa, where low budget tourists travelling by buses and large vans can camp, cook and access toilet facilities for a small fee, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Thursday.

He was responding to a zero hour mention, during the assembly's ongoing monsoon session, raised by Leader of Opposition Chandrakant Kavlekar, who demanded strict action against outstation tourists who travel to Goa on a shoe-string budgets in buses or large vans, cook on pavements or beaches and end up littering.

"We are identifying places where people, who want to cook, can go and camp there. There will be toilet facilities. There will be an arrangement to clean up the area. They will have to pay a small fee," Parrikar said.

The Chief Minister also said, that the state government was in the process of setting up special enforcement squads which penalise those who found dumping garbage in public.

With tourism in Goa increasing nearly triple-fold in the last decade or so, the state has been unable to handle the approximately 400 metric tons of garbage tons of garbage, which the tourist footfalls generate as it has only one garbage management plant.

It is not unusual to find piles of garbage strewn along the roads as well as near urban hubs in this beach tourism destination, visited by more than six million tourists annually.