HC to decide on Sunburn and Supersonic EDMs tomorrow
GOANEWS DESK, PANAJI | 16 December 2015 23:39 IST
High court will decide tomorrow the fate of two Electronic Dance Music festivals, which attract thousands of youth from all over the world for four days from 27 December.
Meanwhile, organisers of both the events – Sunburn at Vagator and Supersonic at Candolim – have already sold most of the tickets long ago even before the venues are approved by the state authorities officially.
Precisely this is the reason Trajano D’Mello, vice president of the Nationalist Congress Party, had moved to the Bombay high court at Goa with a petition to stop these events.
He had alleged rampant flow of drugs, sound pollution as well as traffic congestion all along the coastal belt from 2 pm till midnight due to these EDMs, both held on the same dates – 27 to 30 December.
Before passing the order, the state government has been told to make statements regarding the dues not paid to the police department by the organisers, which run into crores of rupees.
While taking a tough stand against the non-payment of dues, the police department has also urged the government to move one of the events to South Goa, possibly on different dates, expressing its helplessness in controlling the traffic.
Instead of taking the side of the police, the government has told the court that the police machinery takes care of smooth traffic flow as well as controlling the drug menace during the festivals.
D’Mello, who lost the last Assembly election from Saligao against BJP’s tourism minister Dilip Parulekar, has been consistently alleging politician-drug mafia nexus operational behind both the EDMs.
No matter what the politicians allege against each other, it is a fact that organisers of both Sunburn and Supersonic start announcing the venues and sell tickets without even waiting for the government to give its approval.
The State Level Permission Committee, headed by the chief secretary, finally gives permission to both the events at the same venue and same dates.
The SLPC, after meeting on 8 December and listening to the objections of the police department, will now inspect both the venues on 21 December and take a final decision on 24 December.
While around 50,000 music lovers throng the venues every day for these festivals, not less than 600 policemen are deployed from Panaji and Mapusa cities to the venues when lakhs of tourists are spread all along the coastal belt of Goa during the same time.
The tickets of both the EDMs range between Rs 1000 to Rs 17,000.
