Tourist boat operators halt activities

Calangute: Most waters ports operators halted their operations on Thursday in the wake of Wednesday’s tragedy when an overloaded boat capsized off Calangute beach, killing one tourist.

Calangute MLA Michael Lobo on Thursday urged water sports operators to follow the rules and regulations to ensure safety of tourists. Lobo told reporters that there should not be a repeat of such incidents. “If Sri Lanka can do tourism so well, why can’t we?” he said.

If other tourism destinations can have well-organised watersports, then even Goa can do it, Lobo said. “No overloading. There cannot be anything and everything,” he said, referring to the casual approach of most stakeholders, and slammed the water sports operators for the haphazard and unprofessional functioning.

“Half the water sports workers are touts. This is unacceptable. All operators must make uniforms for their staff and those without uniforms should be arrested as touts,” he said, urging the tourism department and Captain of Ports (CoP) to better regulate water sports activities.

“It is not stopped officially. It has been kept closed because we want to tell operators to follow the rules and regulations,” Lobo said. Tourism department assistant director Sudesh Tamoskar and CoP hydrographic surveyor Ram Asare Gupta were also present.



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