Panaji: Describing the captain of ports’ reasoning for withdrawing permission for watersports during the monsoons as “immature”, tourism minister Rohan Khaunte said that his department has no intention of designating any specific zones in the rivers for watersports.On July 16, captain of ports Octavio Rodrigues revoked a two-year old notification permitting watersports on the grounds that the tourism department never followed through on demarcating the designated zones for watersports.“I told the tourism director to take a look at the order. You cannot tell the court that the tourism department failed to demarcate the watersport zones. We are not demarcating. I have not demarcated anything in my tenure at least,” said Khaunte.The minister said that watersports activities like jet ski rides, kayaking, banana boat rides and other joyrides are meant to be conducted along the coastline and not in inland waters. He also expressed concern about the impact on marine biodiversity.“The sea is there (for such activities). When you come to Goa in the monsoon, you have to go to the hinterland, you can’t do watersports. If someone dies, what are you going to do? We stopped kayaking at Calangute. If something goes wrong, the whole thing gets spoiled,” said Khaunte.He also expressed his displeasure over the number of watersports licences being issued by the captain of ports.“He is busy giving licences for reasons best known to him. I have stopped giving licences because there is a capacity that a place can handle. In one stretch, there are 100 boats and now there are 100 more applications given by the captain of ports and these have come to us for permissions. One operator used to get a round every day, today he is getting a round in three days,” said Khaunte.He said that bigger players in Goa’s watersports market who have 20-30 boats will keep getting more business but the smaller operators will die out.
