Panaji: Several tourists on Calangute beach appear to have rung in the New Year by breaking alcohol bottles after consuming the contents.
Many parts of the beach on Thursday morning had glass pieces strewn in the sand and in the water, and lifeguards attended to at least 45 cases of cut feet, said sources.
"Most of those we treated were injured while either swimming or walking on the beach," a lifeguard told TOI. Of those injured, 7-8 were women tourists. After administering them first aid, the lifeguards referred the injured people to the nearby primary health centre for anti-tetanus.
A local hotelier, who has been creating awareness about the issue for a while now, said that though IRB and police personnel, responsible for monitoring the beaches, send away tourists carrying glass bottles, there's no way to stop such tourists from getting onto the sands after the personnel complete their shift.
The tourism department had imposed a ban on drinking on beaches two years ago and IRB personnel were posted to ensure people this was implemented.
"It appears that people celebrating New Year's eve on the beach were not content just sitting on the sands and drinking, they decided to break the bottles too as part of their celebration," said the hotelier, adding that the tourism department should deploy more personnel and keep the vigilance round-the-clock to ensure this menace is checked.
A lifeguard said this is the first time they had so many cases of people getting injured by glass pieces. It's normally just one or two cases in a day. "When I came on duty this morning, the beach was so filthy that it took the cleaners half-a-day to clean just a kilometre or two, and by that time many of the glass pieces had been swept into the sea by the waves," said the lifeguard.
Tourism director Ameya Abhyankar, when contacted, said the tourist police are heavily understaffed. "We barely have some 100 police personnel to man Goa's 105km coastline. We have already approached the government asking for more police personnel for deployment at tourist places. Just 3-4 personnel are not enough when there are big crowds. On New Year's eve 15,000 tourists visited Calangute beach," said Abhyankar, adding, "At the end of this month (January), police deployed at beaches will be given vehicles to cover their areas of deployment thoroughly."
No comments:
Post a Comment