Goa’s Cabinet Minister for Tourism, Sports and Youth Affairs, as well as Minister for Ports, since 5 June 2002, Francisco X Pacheco – mostly known as Micky – has at last decided to take a stand against the casino vessels now thronging the Mandovi River. His stated vision is to make Goa an ideal tourist state and he wants the casino operators to comply with laws that are presently being ignored. Threatening to invoke the Goa Tourism and Trade Act, Pacheco complained in an interview that the vessels are dumping their sewage straight into the water and are not moored the required five nautical miles offshore.

There are now six casino ships located in the Mandovi River at state capital Panaji, and the riverine land is cluttered with casino counters - one operating at the Captain of Ports jetty, two others along the river navigation jetty and one on the jetty of the fisheries department. According to newspaper reports, the Captain of Ports headquarters is also to be used for additional casino counters. The counters and feeder boats are used in transporting people to the casino vessels.

According to Pacheco, Home Minister Ravi Naik has been negligent and the casinos should have been subject to inspections to ensure they do not violate the law. His comments follow the revelation that the government allowed MV Casino Royale to operate under a Comores flag without permission from the Director General of Shipping and against the law that says such vessels must be registered in India.

The opposition party has accused some members of the government of taking bribes from casino operators to grant casino licences. The leader of the opposition, Manohar Parrikar, says that if the government does not rectify matters then he will be forced to file a criminal complaint. The fact that Casino Royale obtained its gaming licence before the re-registration formalities were completed shows, he says, that all rules and regulations under the Goa Public Gambling Act have been violated.
(E-03.03.09)

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