Organisers of Sunburn have got use of the land for the festival only from December 28 to 30, and not 31.
At an Extraordinary General Body meeting held on Sunday, gauncars of Anjuna Comunidade granted permission to the Sunburn organisers to hold the event for three days, and not on December 31, as requested, while also rejecting the proposal of the government to transfer land to the Department of Tourism.
In a meeting that saw all gauncars having no problems in agreeing on the issue, the message to the executive committee members – president Domingos Pereira, attorney Seby D’Souza and treasurer Denny D’Souza – was that the bounty will be bigger for all by sharing equally.
The application of Spacebound Web Labs Pvt Ltd to organise Sunburn on land belonging to Anjuna Comunidade was discussed, and the gauncars unanimously decided that December 31 will not be allotted, as it would cause inconvenience to the villagers of Anjuna, “as it is our festive season.”
“New Year’s Eve is the one day of the year when we like to spend time with our families who return from outside. If we cannot have one day of the year together, it is of no use,” said Nelson as he strode triumphantly from the meeting.
The Extraordinary General Body meeting also decided to charge the organisers of Sunburn Rs 2,43,14,607 (Rs 2.43 crore), at the rate of Rs 51 per square metre, for three days, from December 28 to December 30, with a 15 percent returnable deposit.
“It is further decided to take the demand draft first and issue the NOC after the payment is made, and parking should be done in the parking lot only, as it is causing a lot of inconvenience to the locals staying around,” read part of the minutes accessed.
“Sunburn can think they can buy everyone and hope after this meeting they will realise that not all gauncars are thieves or purchasable commodities. We are capable of standing for the truth and this is what we have achieved today,” said Xavier as he and friends prepared for a late lunch.
One of the gauncars urged the executive committee members to first measure the land asked for and that the same be then handed over to the interested parties to avoid additional land being used illegally.
“If you give land without measuring, then the organisers could well be paying members of the executive committee through the back door for the additional land used,” a member stated in Konkani during the meeting.
The meeting, that was attended by 35 gauncars, saw all of them unanimously deciding to charge Rs 20,40,000 to the organisers of India Bike Week (IBW).
IBW was charged at the rate of Rs 51 per square metre, for the 20,000 square metres used illegally.
“In future, if any event organiser or company exceeds/violates the area given to the event, the NOC will be revoked and will be charged four times the amount of the existing rate and ban organizing any event in future,” read part of the minutes of the Extraordinary General Body meeting.
The EGM also unanimously decided to grant permission to Navnath Parab, Prakash Porob and Joseph Lobo, all gauncars, to grant comunidade land of 2,000 square metres to organise a weekend party on Fridays, from December 15, 2023 to March 15, 2024 at the lump sum rate of Rs 50,000 per month.
