Goa: No lifeguards on beaches as govt fails to renew contract

Panaji: Goa's beaches would be without lifeguards from 15 September as the private agency engaged to provide services has decided to withdraw its personnel due to Government's failure to renew contract.

Drishti Special Response Services (DSRS), in a notice to the State Tourism Ministry, has informed they will withdraw all their 550 lifeguards from 105 km stretch of the beaches as the Ministry has failed to renew their five-year contract.

Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar said his department has invited fresh tenders from agencies interested to provide lifeguards.

He declined to comment when asked whether the beaches would be allowed to remain without lifesavers as the tourist season is beginning from mid-September.

DSRS, which bagged the contract in 2008, was initially assigned select beaches. However, since 2010 the agency has been manning the entire coastline, which attracts lakhs of tourists from India and abroad.

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DSRS Chief Operations Officer V K Kanwar told PTI that the agency carried out 1,187 operations rescuing 1,750 people in the last five years on Goa's beaches.

Of late, their services were extended to other tourist hotspots like Dudhsagar waterfall, from where several drowning incidents had been reported.

Kanwar said the agency issued the notice as their regular contract expired on June 15 and since then the Tourism Ministry has been renewing it on a monthly basis. "We decided not to seek monthly renewal due to various issues," he said.

DSRS was not receiving payments from the Ministry on time and even the 10 percent annual increment embedded in the agreement was not honoured by the Government this year, he added.

PTI