Panjim, Feb 27 : The Department of Tourism, Govt. of Goa has proposed to conduct training programs for water sport operators along Goa’s coastline to increase its rapid response systems and deal with incidents and casualties occurring during excursions conducted off -shore. The decision to impart such training has dual objectives. The short term plan is to impart training in rescue and rehab operations to deal with emergencies and untoward incidents which have occurred off-shore in the recent past. The second and long term objective is to have more trained life guards through water sport operators along the coastline and serve as a force multiplier during natural disasters.
Water sports operators will be provided this training free of cost by the tourism department and the training sessions are proposed to begin shortly. The training program is mandatory for all water sports operators conducting adventure activities along the coastline. This decision has been taken n the wake of incidents reported of excursion boats capsizing off shore and drowning cases thereof. One of the recent incidents was reported off Bat Island.
The department has also disclosed that its four hi-speed boats which have been non-operational will be put to use for such off-shore rescue and rehab operations. The Minister for Tourism, Shri. Dilip Parulekar said, “Goa is projected as a safe holiday destination on and off-shore and we have seen that cases of drowning deaths are declining and the target is to make it Zero.”
He further said, “The plan to train water sports operators as life guards which will add more hands on to the existing team, reach out to distress calls in deep waters and ensure speedy rescue and rehab operations.”
