The tourism department will resume its drive against encroachments on tourism land and public beaches soon after the monsoon, tourism minister Dilip Parulekar said.

Speaking to TOI, Parulekar said that his department's drive against encroachments on tourism land is being conducted through a three-pronged strategy— the first is direct demolitions and filing of court cases, the second is actually using those properties so that no encroachments happen there, while the third is the appointment of the estate officer for properties of the Goa tourism development corporation ( GTDC).

Tourism director Nikhil Desai said that the GTDC's estate officer is a quasi-judicial authority having powers of the civil court to hear cases, to issue notices and to pass orders under the Goa Public Premises Eviction of Unauthorized Occupants Act.

Desai said the tourism department has made a lot of headway in demolishing illegal structures. But wherever courts have intervened, the department is fighting in courts. "We should be able to win these cases too,"
Desai said.

Additionally, the tourism department is doing mapping of the encroachments on public beaches. "Once the mapping is done, the encroachments on public beaches will be determined and we will start action along the whole coastline from North to South of Goa. The mapping is being done to actually verify whether these are actual encroachments or not," he said.

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