Team Goemkarponn
CANACONA: Agonda beach, once acclaimed as the travellers top choice for its pristine, clean and nature paradise, is undergoing Seal-lock as 27 of the earmarked 67 tourism establishments are Sealed.
In a massive exercise, the Sealing of 67 tourism structures/establishments as ordered by the high court on Wednesday is taken up by the authorities beginning Thursday afternoon amidst tight police security. Canacona Dy. Collector Madhu Narvekar, Mamlatdar Manoj Korgaonkar, assisted by BDO Savio Coutinho and GCZMA Officials commenced the Sealing process at about 1.30 pm on Thursday on the Southern side of Agonda beach shore.
At the end of day 1, 27 of the establishments/structures are applied with Locks and Sealed with the stamp of the Authority. A Sealing Notice stating ‘ in continuation with the order passed by the High Court in PIL No.36/2025 dated 19/03/2025 and as per the order issued by the Deputy Collector and Sub Division Officer, Canacona taluka South Goa vide no. DYC/SDO/CAN/Writ-Petition/2025/863 dated 20/03/2025 this property in Sy. No. (mentioned respective survey number and Name of the Owner) has been sealed on dated 20/03/2025. By Order” is pasted on all the 27 structures sealed on the day.
By the end of the day (5.45 pm) 27 structures/establishments were sealed by the authorities after allowing the operators to remove their stocks or allowing the owners to dismantle/demolish their structures partly on their own. Many of the shops including liquor shops, Ice-cream parlours, saloons, travels agencies, were allowed to take out their stocks, valuables, before the respective teams of VP Secretaries Amol K Naikgaunkar, Sushant Lolienkar under the nodal officer and Canacona BDO Savio Coutinho, applied locks and completed the Sealing process.
A team of electricity officials disconnected the power supply and cut-off electricity connection to the meter box of all the 27 sealed establishments.
Incidentally an Engineer from GCZMA was present to identify the 67 structures/establishments which also includes resorts having Shacks and Huts, Kiosks, Kashmiri stalls, etc ordered by the High Court to shutdown and stop operations within 24 hours of the pronunciation of the order on Wednesday morning. Strong poses of police personnel were also present as a number of people including the inquisitive locals turned up in large numbers to witness the sealing process.
Incidentally, a lot of discontent is expressed by the affected people as regards to the reasoning given by court as these structures/establishments are hindering the protection of Turtle Nestings on Agonda shore, the wrong inclusion of survey numbers for alleged encroachments, .
Some of the angry operators blamed the AG for not defending the tourism stakeholders in the High Court and instead siding with the petitioner demanding court action against the people.
“We are going to meet Chief Minister Dr. Pramod Sawant and lodge a strong complaint against the Attorney General for not protecting the people in the court, but speaking against them. The turtle nesting is on the northern-side of Agonda beach, whereas all the 67 structures taken up for sealing are hundreds of metres away from the turtle nesting site, and are nowhere connected with either the disturbance or infringes on the protection of turtle nests.’, informed an operator.
Some of the aggrieved stakeholders also blamed local MLA and GLA Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, for not coming out to the assistance of the affected people. Earlier 17 structures were sealed/removed, our MLA did not interfere nor even visited once. Now 67 more are ordered for shutdown, our MLA is nowhere to be seen. We had requested our MLA to speak for us with the chief minister and reel us out of this situation, but he hasn’t done anything. Now, we had asked our MLA to take an appointment with the chief minister which he obliged and took the appointment on Friday during his visit to Canacona where we would present the ground reality and express our situation to the chief minister and seek his intervention to save our livelihood.’, said another operator on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the sealing process of all the remaining establishments of the overall 67 structures will be continued on Friday morning.
The aggrieved tourism stakeholders have decided to lead a morcha against the government authorities at Canacona Dy. Collectorate on Monday against the authorities action on the tourism operators. Starting if today their establishments are closed/shutdown in view of the turtle protection , tomorrow it will be the rest of the tourism structures on the entire beach coast and every villager should join the morcha on Monday.
Meanwhile, Sealing of remaining 40 tourism establishments resumed Friday morning with Dy Collector and his team reaching Agonda at around 10.30 am
