Majority of Goa’s shacks in Calangute and Candolim; four beaches find no takers

Officials said 353 shacks have been allotted, while 11 shacks could not be allocated in the draw due to lack of applications for shacks on four beaches in the state. A majority of shacks have been allotted at Calangute beach stretch (108) and Candolim beach stretch (84) in North Goa. In South Goa, 98 shacks have been allotted along the beach stretches.

“For the shacks which were not allotted in the draw, there is a waiting list and the allotment for them would be done as per provisions of the policy,” an official said.

With the tourist season already underway and more charter flights expected in the coming weeks, shack owners said it will take another week or more to set up the shacks, after the tourism department completes the demarcation exercise and requisite clearances are received from other departments.

Cruz Cardozo, president of Goa Shack Owners Welfare Society, said that the tourism department is ideally supposed to issue provisional licences to the shack owners a month before the season begins.

“The department should have released a draft of the new policy a few months ago. Now, everything has been delayed. The season has already begun. Shacks will only come up by the middle of this month. We are losing business, just waiting for processes and clearances,” he said.

The allotment of shacks has been delayed this year after the state government approved a new beach shack policy, with some ‘contentious’ clauses in the policy leading to protests by traditional Goan shack owners. While the previous beach shack policy had no bar on age for the allotment of shacks, the government sought to insert a clause, stipulating that the age of applicants should be between 18 and 60.

After protests by the shack owners, who claimed that the move to insert an age cap for allottees was ‘an agenda to drive out traditional shack owners’ and encourage entry of ‘outsiders’, the government had scrapped the age clause. Another provision in the policy, which had sparked outrage, was the proposal to relax the eligibility criteria for experience, with the government proposing that 90 percent of shacks be allotted to applicants having at least one year of experience of running a shack and 10 percent to be allotted to those with no experience.

In the revised policy, the government changed the experience clause, allowing for 80 percent of shacks to be allotted for those having experience of five years or more of running a shack; 10 percent of shacks to applicants with at least one year of experience and 10 percent to those with no experience.

In October, five shack operators filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court at Goa, challenging the shack allotment criteria based on years of experience in the policy. The petitioners contended that there should be one class of applicants, irrespective of whether they had any experience of running a shack. The High Court declined to grant an interim stay to the implementation of the shack policy and admitted the petition, stating that the allotment of shacks would be subject to the final orders of the court.

Policy hiccups

The allotment of shacks this year has been a stormy affair. A new policy by the Goa government had some clauses that led to protests from shack owners, including one that mandated applicants must be between 18 and 60 years of age. After a pushback by shack operators, the government backtracked on this clause.