From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Correspondent - Panaji
Panaji, Mar 4: Even before the Carnival floats could hit the streets, the controversy has struck the festivities, which will now be held with the pruned budget.
Carnival, a tradition that Goa inherited from erstwhile Portuguese rule, is in for a major controversy with the state tourism department failing to address the issues. Various carnival committees, constituted across the five main cities in the state, to host the parades, have to work with the lesser budget.
State-run Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC), which was the main host for the festivities all these years, has pulled out from the festivities.
“The King Momo’s float, which heralds the parade, would be made by state tourism department,” GTDC Chairman Shyam Satardekar said. Conventionally, GTDC was hosting all the parades and deciding on the King Momo float, which is the facet of the grade march.
Satardekar said that the tourism department has decided to drop GTDC from the organizing list and host the festivities on their own. “It was not we who volunteered to go. We were not considered by the department right from the beginning,” he claimed.
The maiden float parade, kicking off four day long festivities in the state, will be held in Panaji on Saturday, March 5.
King Momo, a mythological character, rules the state during festivities and orders a decree of `eat, drink and be merry.’ Usually, a tall and fat guy is picked up to impersonate King Momo on the float during the festive days.
The parades are huge attraction amongst the tourists who flood the streets to enjoy this Latin-American festivity.
Although the parades are like the one hosted on Brazil’s Rio De Janeiro Street, nudity and obscene behaviour is shunned here. The floats are thoroughly scanned by the team of experts before they are rolled out on the street.
For Carnival 2011, the preparations for the parades was marred with a major controversy after tourism department announced financial support of meager Rs 4 lakh for the committees as against the last year’s share of Rs 35 share.
The sudden drop in the budget had upset the carnival committees, who were left to fend for themselves as tourism minister Nilkant Halarnkar and director Swapnil Naik left for the US to participate in the travel mart. They are yet to return from their foreign trip.
The tourism department officials insisted that the carnival committees should scout for commercial sponsors for the event.
Panjim Carnival Committee Chairman Joaquim Teles said that Chief Minister Digambar Kamat himself had to intervene and hike the budget up to Rs 30 lakh for Panaji float and Rs 15 lakh each for other four cities.
Teles said that the prize money of Rs 50,000 will be awarded for the float which wins the parade competition. “There was little uncertainity initially but now everything is on the tracks. We are ready to celebrate grand carnival festivities,” he said.
The carnival in Panaji also had hiccup as Corporation of city of Panaji (CCP) mayor Caroline Po, who was heading the committee, had to step down considering the impending civic polls.
Panaji will go for polls on March 13, 2011.
Teles said that around 90 floats will be participating in the parade, which has banned commercial floats advertising the products. “There is no theme for the floats but basically, it’s a colourful float parade showing different kind of dances and full of creativity,” he added.
Goa attracts around 30,000 tourists, basically domestic crowd, for the float parades, which are held on the city’s main street.