The Goa Government will write to the National National Institute of Oceanography to study the carrying capacity of the State's world famous beaches to determine the optimum number of private shacks to manageable numbers. Speaking to The Pioneer Goa State Pollution Control Board chairman Jose Noronha said that a new mechanism was being evolved to set up clean, paid public toilets on popular beach stretches.
"There may be too many shacks on the beaches. The carrying capacity of the beaches itself should be studied. The Board had decided to ask NIO to study the carrying capacity of the beaches to understand really how many shacks could be ideally put on a particular stretch of beach," Noronha said.
According to the current system kitchen waste as well as sewage is temporarily stored in a buried plastic tank, which is then sucked out by the sewage sucker tanker and taken to a sewage treatment plant. However, the Goa State Coastal Zone Management Authority has taken objection to the current system given that buying tanks in in the sand invariably involves destruction of sand dunes.
The NIO is a Central Government agency which functions under the aegis of the Council of Scienctific and Industrial Research. Noronha said that the carrying capacity study would look at issues related to sewage management and solid waste management in relation to beach shacks.
Several hundred beach shacks cater to the over three million tourists who arrive in Goa annually for fun and frolic. The shacks, which have serve a wide range of food and alcohol are licenced every tourist season and have to be dismantled with the advent of the monsoons. Besides the shacks on the beach there are several shacks on private land. According to the Boards figures there are as many as 377 beach shacks, including private ones along the Candolim-Calangute-baga beach stretch.
"We have received a lot of complaints regarding toilet facilities in shacks. We are looking if we can have a common toilet facility on a paid basis, which can be shared by 10 or 15 shacks," Noronha said, adding that the facility would have to be maintained by the State Tourism Department.
Noronha also said that a study involving the carrying capacity of Goa's rivers would soon be undertaken in view of the increasing marine traffic as well as river-oriented tourism and infrastructure projects. "We have also asked the Environment Department of government of Goa to study carrying capacity of our rivers," Noronha also said.
The decision was in view of the expected growth in river based tourism and other commercial projects in the State like " house boats, jetties, marinas, pontoons, berthing points for trawlers and boats". The baseline study, Noronha said, would help determine "how much (infrastructure) we can allow on which stretch" and would help measure water quality and examine the water bodies for coliform levels and contaminants.