4 other venues for Sunburn shortlisted In an effort to shift the Sunburn festival from Candolim this year, the government-constituted committee to issue single window clearances to tourism events in Goa will visit sites at Mandrem, Anjuna, Cavelossim and Colva to shortlist one for the mega music fest. Tourism minister Dilip Parulekar told TOI that the government has ruled out allowing Sunburn festival at Candolim scheduled around Christmas this year. Asked why Candolim was ruled out, Parulekar said that his visit to the festival at Candolim last year had revealed to him the ground realities; over 25,000 people converge at the site that is severely lacking in space. There were problems of traffic congestion on roads, parking for vehicles and lot of inconvenience to the public. In contrast, the alternative sites proposed by the organizers at Mandrem, Anjuna, Colva and Cavelossim, all had land as large as 2.5 lakh sq m. Holding the festival at any of these places would not inconvenience the public, Parulekar said. The tourism minister was confident that shifting the Sunburn from Candolim to anywhere else in Goa would not cause drop in attendance resulting in losses in revenues to the state. Said Parulekar, "We know that the organizers tried holding the festival in many places including Delhi, Dubai, Sri Lanka and elsewhere but it failed everywhere. Sunburn is a huge hit is Goa because people love to come to Goa especially because it is the Christmas and New Year season." Parulekar said he was always ideologically opposed to allowing Sunburn anywhere in Goa and had taken a similar stand last year. But numerous requests from various people in the tourism industry had forced the government to allow it. "People impressed upon us that the festival did benefit local restaurants, taxis, hotels and guesthouse and indirectly earned the government at least about 5 crore. Moreover, while the earlier government was charging the Sunburn festival organizers only 5 lakh, we collected 1.5-crore last year. We will charge the same fee this year," Parulekar said. For major tourism events like the Sunburn festival, the government has set up a permissions committee headed by the tourism secretary as chairman. High-ranking officials from police, excise, health, tourism, etc. are members of this committee. The final decision of this state-level committee will be submitted for approval to the tourism minister and chief minister. Once the permission is accorded by the state-level committee, the authorities concerned will accord permissions and licenses, upon payment of prescribed fees.
Posted on: Sat, 14 Sep 2013 14:26:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015