Brazil tour junked, but junkets part of governance in Goa

PANAJI: The recent controversy over the 89lakh-Brazil junket involving six ministers and MLAs has brought to the fore how governments across the board have splurged taxpayers' money on foreign trips for their mantris and babus.
The purported 'study tour' to Brazil backfired after TOI broke the story, and the resultant public outcry, but there have been many other less-publicized jaunts which state politicians have enjoyed at the cost of crores of public money under the guise of promoting tourism abroad or studying garbage treatment technology, for instance.
The hullabaloo over the football junket does not seem to have deterred the tourism department though-the team is gearing up for their Euro tour, apparently to publicize the exposition of St Francis Xavier scheduled for later this year.
Among other countries, the team will focus on the beautiful country of Spain, from where they hope to draw followers of the Spanish saint.
During 2007-12, Goa participated in 38 ITMs and 15 roadshows worldwide at the cost of 19.47crore, according to the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) report (2011-12).
But there were even more since 2012. In the guise of tapping new markets and sustaining existing ones, the government has been on a spree of holding roadshows and other promotional events internationally.
At regular intervals, Goan delegations have been visiting foreign countries on 'study trips' or tourism promotional activities.
Tourism minister Dilip Parulekar attended the maximum number of travel marts and roadshows-in Netherland, Berlin and Denmark-apart from roadshows in the US-New York and Los Angeles-in 2013.
Chairman of the Goa tourism development corporation (GTDC) Nilesh Cabral also attended plenty of roadshows.
The Goa team also included the tourism director, deputy and assistant directors, and senior officials of GTDC among others. Once or twice, the tours also included clerical staff.
In the last assembly session, the tourism department was under fire from some MLAs, including member of the ruling party, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo, and independent MLA from Porvorim, Rohan Khaunte, for "wasteful expenditure" on foreign trips.
Ironically, the junket culture that prevailed during the previous Congress-led state government had come under strong fire from the opposition BJP; the same leaders packing their bags for junkets today once fought the practice tooth and nail.
CAG had observed that no visitor books were maintained at ITM and domestic travel marts "so as to ascertain the number of visitors, their recommendations and to measure the impact of the Goa stall on global and domestic audiences". "All that the reports submitted by the agencies invariably included were a few photographs, but they did not discuss how many persons/agencies were contacted or how many attended," CAG noted. Also, no MoUs were signed during any of the roadshows or ITMs.
Ralph de Sousa, spokesperson, travel and tourism association of Goa (TTAG), calls for an audit to ascertain the effectiveness of each promotional tour and roadshow. "It is important to travel abroad to boost Goa tourism, but there should be a more professional approach to it. There is no point in making numerous trips to countries that are not interested in what Goa has to offer-transatlantic tourists for instance, are not our target," he explains. An independent tourism board would solve all these problems, he claims.
"A tourism board is essentially a permanent institution that outlives the governments and other players in the trade. The board is usually formed by an Act of Legislature and has fiscal powers, but most importantly, it is run by a full-time board of directors who are professional tourism planners with extensive experience in the field," he says.
Besides tourism, Goa's ministers were sent on other missions which included deputy chief minister Francis D'Souza, industries minister Mahadev Naik, deputy speaker Anant Shet and others.
Cleofato Coutinho, a social activist, stated that such junkets are illogical, as the ministers and politicians are invariably not capable of understanding the subject entrusted to them, he claims. "If a bureaucrat like the member secretary of science, technology and environment is sent on a foreign trip to study garbage management and asked to make a presentation, it is fine," said Coutinho.
But software is easily available now and information is accessible without much trouble. "Going abroad is a waste of public funds and 'junket governance' is a new term we have provided to the administration," said Coutinho.