‘Goa Not Open For Tourism, Please Don’t Come to Enjoy’: CM Sawant

“More than 50 percent of the people coming to Goa by trains are outsiders. It’s a worry,” Sawant said.

(Photo: PTI)

Expressing concern over a surge in visitors to Goa, the state’s Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that over 50 percent of people who were booked on special trains to Goa were are not local residents, IANS reported.

"More than 50 percent of the people coming to Goa by trains are outsiders. It's a worry," Sawant said.

After recording zero cases for more than a month, eight COVID-19 cases have been reported in the state in the last 24 hours. All eight people, according to Sawant, had entered the state from Maharashtra and Gujarat via road.

He said the Goa government would write to the Ministry of Railways against the special trains halting in Goa. "We will write to the Railway Ministry, that halts of trains (passing through) in Goa should be avoided," Sawant said.

He said, "720 people have booked tickets on the train to get down at Madgaon. We have realised that hardly anyone of them is Goan," news agency PTI reported.

"We are concerned about what will happen once they get down. We will have to test them. We will advice them home quarantine, but we are not sure if they will do that. That is why, we have suggested that the train skip the station," he said.

On 13 May, Sawant had issued a strong warning to people who are using the special train service, meant to ferry stranded persons, from visiting Goa on a holiday, clarifying that the coastal state was not open for tourism yet.

He said that passengers, including non-Goans, who arrive in the state by special trains from 15 May as well as those who arrive by flights, will have to arrange for their own accommodation.

"They will have to stay indoors at their respective hotels for 14 days. They cannot enter the beaches, which remain closed. They cannot come here to enjoy," he said according to PTI.

(With inputs from IANS and PTI)