Sunburn weathers storm, Rs 1 lakh surety paid
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Panaji: Even as the Calangute police lodged a complaint against the organizers of the Sunburn festival at Candolim for playing loud music, the government granted fresh conditional permission to the organizers to carry on with the beach music festival after they paid a surety of Rs 1 lakh.
Chief secretary JP Singh said, “The organizers have made a petition to the collector and they have given a guarantee of Rs 1 lakh and an undertaking that they will not violate the sound levels. As their sound levels on the second day were within the norms, the deputy collector gave them permission to continue the festival. This is conditional. Moreover, the Goa State Pollution Control Board will monitor the sound levels.”
When asked if this is an exception and if others who violate the Noise Pollution Act will be allowed to carry on operations by giving a guarantee amount, Singh said, “This can’t become a trend.”
The 3-day festival which started on Saturday was stopped by the Calangute police on Sunday after Mapusa sub divisional magistrate issued an order cancelling its conditional NOC.
Sources said that due to political pressure from a ruling MLA, the government asked the organizers to apply again for permission. They were then asked to give a surety of Rs 1 lakh and an undertaking that they would strictly abide by the law and if it is violated, penal action would be taken against them, besides them having to forfeit the Rs 1 lakh.
Mapusa SDM Mahesh Khorjuenkar said, “It is a government decision to give fresh permission as the organizers have applied again on Monday. We have given permission with certain conditions.”
Reacting to the conditional permission granted by the government, former additional advocate general Vilas Thali told TOI that the guarantee should not have been accepted at all. “The decision is discriminatory,” he said.
Environmentalist Claude Alvares said the decision of granting permission after taking a guarantee of Rs 1 lakh is “wrong and illegal”. “Goa Foundation will approach the court and see that nobody is allowed to have parties like this in the future,” he said.
Pointing to the amount being “hardly anything” for the organizers to shell out, he said, “Considering the amount, every organizer will be willing to give such a guarantee to organize such parties.”
The police in their complaint said that on December 27, between 12.45pm and 10pm, the organizers of the festival played music ranging from 67.2db to 89.3db. The permitted decibel level is up to 55db. A case had accordingly been registered against the organizer Lyndon Alves from Dona Paula under section 3 and 4 of the Noise Pollution Act.
When contacted, Calangute MLA Agnelo Fernandes said, “I was fighting to get permissions for Sunburn. Because of this, 48 more shacks have got permission to play music. If you don’t have such parties and music for Christmas, then what is the fun of being in Goa? For the sake of tourism, people need to bear some music that anyway stops by 10pm. Everyone in Calangute and Candolim is happy except people who complain perenially.”
December 30, 2008, The Times of India, Goa Edition
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See the comments put in Penpricks and Goajourno run by ....
Sure this post took eight years coming. Too bad the book, whose excerpts we have quoted from, was only published in the year 2007 or something.
In a way, this story is a logical extension of the series of posts which we put up following Preetu Nair's startling observation. Here's what Preetu had stated in her response to Miguel Braganza.
"Fortunately, readers are quick to realize that much of what goes on in the tourist paradise of Goa goes unreported because a few local journos and their editors play host to the corrupt system."
We wonder now if Arun Saldanha's book Psychedelic White -- Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race puts Preetu's comment in perspective.
So what does Arun Saldanha say...
Saldanha draws a line between "the abrupt demolition of Goa2000 by an army of cops and thugs was great news for Dolce Vita, Bamboo Forest and Hilltop."
The author states that Dolce Vita was run by Roy Fernandes. (Roy, some of you guys may know, is former minister Fatima De Sa's PA, who was sentenced to life by a lower court on a murder charge... dunno the status of that case now. Roy, incidentally is a wonderfully resourceful chap along the coast in North Goa. You'd be amazed. He can get you exotic varieties of 'mushrooms' in middle of winter, get you nice scented sort of dry grass even in the middle of monsoons. If you want some of those deliciously intoxicating cookies or a non liquified form of Cola, Roy's one of those guys who can get it for you)
Next, the author also tells the reader that Roy is in fact a cousin to journo Peter D'Souza of Gomantak Times, who had started a 'crusade' against Jeh Wadia's Goa2000 mega rave, which was set to corner the rave and its allied notorious businesses, which Roy had set his sights on, during that heady season of 2000.
While Saldanha has diligently added Peter's denial of the 'purported favor', he does not deny the surge in the economics of Roy's various businesses, which followed his cousin Peter's 'crusade' against Goa2000 on grounds of environment and morality.
We wonder if this is the kind of thing Preetu was referring to, when she alleged that media-persons play host to a corrupt system?
Hmmmm you tell us guys comeon... Preetu also claims that "readers are quick to realise". Maybe she knows best. After all, she's shared bylines with Peter De Souza on several award-winning stories... Hope you're quick to realise that too fellas.
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