TWO years after the media first exposed it, the Goa government has woken up to its social and political commitment and accepted the fact that 10 out 11 cruise boats operating in the waters of the Mandovi were disposing various types of garbage and waste directly into the river.

Doubtless, the state has been earning huge revenue from the casinos but that cannot justify in any way it’s winking at the waste dumping and polluting of the river, to the health risks for people. Sometime back the All Goa Fishermen’s Co-operative Association had sounded an alarm that the sea as well as the Mandovi River were being polluted by commercial vessels and offshore casinos which throw garbage generated by them and also empty their sewage tanks in the sea waters. The government should have acted long back, but what made it refrain from initiating action only the ministers and officers know. Cruise ships generate sewage, greywater, hazardous wastes, ballast water, solids and air pollutants. If released without proper treatment, these wastes could put toxic substances into the environment that would threaten human health and aquatic life. The state’s negligence was so contrary to its own commitment to maintaining ecology. Was this negligence or connivance between public servants and private cruises? A report of the Goa State Pollution Control Board had underscored that a huge amount of pollutant is discharged into the sea. The report maintains that each of the vessels on an average generates 40 plastic bottles, 50 cans and 30 kg wet garbage. These vessels also accepted the fact that they discharge the water used for the purpose of cleaning and toilet into the Mandovi River. On its part the GSPCB had issued show cause notices to eleven cruises which included two vessels owned by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation. What makes it even more intriguing is the government’s statement in the Assembly that the GSPCB has not granted clearance to the cruise boats. Right under the nose of the government and the Assembly, cruises have been illegally operating and polluting the river with total disregard for public interest. The Ad Hoc Committee on Public Works, Panchayats and Transport of the Assembly has expressed surprise at why the government did not take cognisance all these years of the waste that the vessels were releasing into the Mandovi River. Do we hope that the Digambar Kamat government awakens to its first duty, which is to protect the Mandovi and the aquatic life of the river, and take steps to impose most severe penalties upon the owners and operators of the cruises–even stop their operations if need be?