Shakeout in Paradise (Pamela D'Mello)

fredericknoronha

Shakeout in Paradise

.............................. ............

Something has changed over the past year,
the hitherto welcoming atmosphere in Goa
had frosted over.

.............................. ...........

By Pamela D'Mello
dmello.pamela at gmail.com
The Asian Age

GOA: It was peak season at the modest English and continental
cuisine eatery Welma Hicks operated in Calangute. Not the
best time for a summons to police headquarters. "A letter from
a home office undersecretary simply said I'd been refused an
extension on my business visa, since I was running a petty
business of no value. I had 15 days to leave, though my visa
had three months to run," says Ms. Hicks.

Hicks took a hurried flight back to Birmingham; returned with
a one year business visa, but was dismayed she had to exit
every six months.

"How do I run a business if I have to leave the country every
six months?" she asks. In 2004, things had been a lot easier.
Then, a two year business visa had seemed effortless; a one
year extension granted at the Panjim Foreigners Registration
Office in February 2006 without demur.

Hicks (name changed) is among scores of others being asked to
leave for overstaying, or running businesses without proper
permissions and visas. Authorities are no longer willing to
overlook irregularities -- a sea change from an ultra-liberal
approach that marked the region's long association with its
Western visitors.

Something had changed over the past year, the hitherto
welcoming atmosphere in Goa had frosted over.

Ask around and foreigners say coveted five year X-visas that
grant residency -- once liberally handed over -- have all but
dried up; long term residency is actively discouraged, even
tourist visas are being shortened, and those seeking
extensions or renewals have to return to their country of
origin to re-apply.

Goa has had a long tryst with visitors from the West ---
hippy peaceniks, counter-culture backpackers, adventure
travellers, nirvana seekers, ravers, package holidayers,
middle-class pensioners -- quite a few opting to settle down
or return repeatedly to sample its many charms.

Some 2.5 million tourists, a third of them foreigners, have
made Goa a tourism hot-spot. Picking up a holiday or winter
home is quite often the next agenda of the more ambitious or
the more smitten.

The exchange rate takes foreign pensions a longer way in Goa
-- affording a lifestyle not possible back home. Add a
semi-Westernised mileau, a global meeting place six months of
the year, an array of restaurants or pubs and karaoke bars and
the upside of a semi-permanent life here outweigh the
negatives.

The rush to buy real estate that could be got as easily in
Spain, Turkey, Bulgaria or Greece seems to have monetised a
once-easy relationship. Properties in Goa are on every
international global investment listing. All the signs say
local inhabitants are no longer sure if they should be
flattered, tolerant or cautious.

"There's been an anti-foreigner campaign in the local media
for the past two years. There's a tendency to blame us for
all of Goa's problems," rues Briton Jan Bostock, owner of a
tourism multi-service company he operates in Goa with his
Indian wife Arti.

Most Westerners, he says, stay on and blend with the culture,
often restoring heritage houses. "We want to be a part of
Goa, to enjoy its food and culture. We are not trying to
change Goa into anything else, we are here because we love it
here. But foreigners are being scapegoated, because Goans who
resent the invasion of Mumbai and Delhi speculators cannot
really complain about them, and they are the ones investing
more heavily in land," says Bostock.

"Everyone wants a piece of the Goan pie. Only the other day a
Delhi party bought a property for Rs 55 lakhs (Rs 5.5
million), held it for a few days and sold it to a foreign
buyer for Rs 1.50 crore", says tourism watcher and campaigner
Roland Martins.

With land prices appreciating at 15-20% annually, speculation
is a viable option. Local politicians and neighbourhood land
Mafias are very much in on the deals. As an easily
identifiable and unrepresented group, foreigners feel they
are taking the fall, acting as a red herring.

Cases are piling up -- authorities doing a check on 482 cases
of foreigner property purchases for FEMA (Foreign Exchange
Management Act 2000) violations, are simultaneously checking
visa categories for overstays and occupation. Some 26 were
asked to leave in 2006, 16 in 2007.

Some 311 of the 482 property registrations are British, 26
Italian and 2 Russian. The lid blew off the purchases when
they went from innocuous apartment or villa and home
purchases to larger swathes of land. Several Britons,
Americans, Germans and Italians have registered plots above
25,000 sq m , a couple of Russian buyers using local partners
to pick up out-of-bounds agriculture and plantation plots.

Land and built-up prices have shot up seven fold --
apartments and homes out of the reach of middle class locals
at Rs 16 lakhs for modest two bedroom apartments, contributing
to growing xenophobia.

Legislator Agnel Fernandes, representing the coastal
Calangute constituency, has repeatedly brought to the Goa
Assembly notice that foreigners were taking over even micro
tourism services, from care-taking, rentals, water sports,
running restaurants and pubs -- and thus "marginalising
locals".

"What seems to be going on is a process of regulation and
streamlining, to set new procedures," says Roland Martins, a
contrast to the anything-goes approach.

Goa police DIG Ujjwal Mishra concurs, and told The Asian Age:
"The earlier laid-back attitude has gone. We can no longer be
lenient to over-stayers. We've had to tighten things".
Security concerns and media focus on tourism's negatives,
though often exaggerated, he claims, have forced their hand.

"The tightened visa regime is quite clearly to restrict
foreign nationals from meeting residency criteria (182 days)
under the Foreign Exchange Management Act that permits
business, professional or employment categories of foreigners
to purchase and hold immoveable property in India," says a
local lawyer.

FEMA's provisions have been stretched to their maximum -- to
their outer limits in Goa, with legal interpretations
violating the spirit of the legislation..

For the moment though, the Goa government is sending out
clear signals.

"I'm afraid we can't let people retire here. India's visa
regime at the moment has no "right to abode" or "right to
settle permanently" in India without acquiring Indian
citizenship. There is no such category, and all visas go upto
maximum five years," says Goa chief secretary J P Singh.

Central Home Ministry directions he received in 2006 have
specifically asked states to stop registrars from registering
property sale deeds by all non-Indians, unless routed through
the Reserve Bank of India and the state home department

"Instructions are that only foreigners on a business visa can
buy and register property in India, and business visas are
not freely given out," says Singh.

FEMA's ambiguous wording have left the act open to legal
interpretation, under which thousands of foreigners on
tourist and entry visas continue to pay for land, old houses,
villas and apartments in Goa, several burning their fingers
in the process. Meanwhile, despite the uncertainties of an
Enforcement Directorate investigation that's delving deeper
upto 1999 cases and threats of confiscations, Goa's robust if
overheated property market hasn't skipped a beat.

Buyers are being offered an array of options from five year
rolling leases (on freehold payment) with promissory notes or
shares in the project; an agreement to sell or buy deeds with
ownership rights and final registration on qualification.
Others, including a couple of British-owned estate sellers
operating in Goa, are registering fake companies for tourists
to enable property purchase.

With many, these pass muster.

"I don't actually care about freehold ownership. I just want
to live there a few months of the year," says a 48 year old
Welshman, on an expat discussion forum focussed on staying
overseas. With homes in Britain coming at over 300,000 pound
sterling, the 35,000 to 65,000 pounds that fetch premium one
storey villa at current prices in Goa, are still a steal.

But there could be a sting in the tail of this unusual story.
"Much of these are illegal and a circumvention of the law,"
says chief secretary Singh. (ends)

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GoanCanuck

That just about sums it up.


Mods, sticky please.

edwardseco

Guess I had better reexamine my retirement plans..

Nick-H

If we sticky everything it defeats the object!

Best to quote the bits you consider most important in one of the already sticky threads.

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

anjuna mark

I used to think of India as my home, where I grew up, where my friends are. My bones are made from Indian calcium, my hemoglobin from Goan iron. But I guess it’s time to think about moving on.
Just imagine if western countries started deporting all Indians who were operating a "petty business of no value".
How many Indian owned restaurants are there in New York?
How many western owned restaurants are there in the whole of India?
Who’s afraid of the competition?
Those who run restaurants from their ancestral houses and are able to haggle in Konkani can surely hold their own against foreigners who have to pay full rate for everything, pay rent, and have their books scrutinized by every government department twice a month..

The article writer has some strange idea that anything was ever “overlooked”. Visa enforcement has always been pretty strict. The difference was that longer visas were briefly being granted.
Now the government wants to withdraw from those reforms and get back to the older attitude; “We don’t want anyone here who is so vile that they would want to stay in a place like this.” White people out, Goa for Goans.
It’s called xenophobia and racism.

shashank.aggarwal

I do understand your point here and its very relevant...but on second thoughts...I am sure there are not much restrictions on a westerner coming to Delhi/Mumbai and setting up a shop !!

And about the restrictions...I am as Indian as one can get or probably another 1 billion can get...however there are certain areas where I cannot purchase land !! because authorities feel that it will lead to mass commercialization and spoil the ecology...one such place that I am aware of is Nainital, there are other places as well in Himalayas with restrictions and there might be such places all across the country...

The problem is that everyone wants to come and settle in Goa..and authorities feel that this is playing havoc on ecology of the place...

They even bulldoze the shacks and beach huts of local people...

__________________
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Random Reviews

anjuna mark

Sorry, but this idea that "Everyone wants to come here" just doesn’t wash.
I don't have access to numbers [I don't know if there are any], but I suspect that, like most places, Goa has as many people emigrating [leaving] as immigrating [arriving].
It's just the same in the Netherlands where I am at the moment. Screaming headlines about all the foreigners moving in, taking over the place. But there are nearly as many people leaving; that is simply left out of most stories on immigration. Lots of people move in all kinds of directions all the time. It’s normal.
Ecology? That’s not an imported problem. It’s a “new wealth” problem that much of India is facing.
If anything I would say that on average, the western foreigners in India have much more environmental awareness than the local people. We come from mature economies where ecology has been an issue for decades.
Authorities in Goa are worried about themselves and the next elections, just like authorities everywhere. If xenophobia wins a vote or two, they’ll jump right in. Politicians everywhere find it handy to blame outsiders for whatever problems their voters are complaining of.
And of course, the influx of foreign money doesn’t necessarily go where the powers that be would like; there’s a definite undercurrent of “farmers should stay in the fields, toddy tapers in the trees”. When the poor become wealthy they get strange ideas, like a desire for respect.
Yes, there are many who would like to come live in Goa. But nowhere near the numbers to make any significant demographic change. Not an extra 1% of population for instance.
There might be enough to make some economic change, at least in the localities where they live.

GoanCanuck

Here are the facts, draw your own conclusions.
In 1971 the population of Goa was 795,120 and in 2001 the population was 1,343,998.
That is amost double!

http://ncw.nic.in/pdfreports/Gender%20Profile-Goa.pdf [.pdf file]

incitatus

In India as a whole the population in 1970 was 553,000,000 and in 2000 it was 1,004,591,054 also almost double.

What's your point?

GoanCanuck

Did you even read the document that I referenced? The birth rate in Goa is far lower than that for the rest of India, yet the population almost doubled. How did this happen?

It is quite obvious that the population increase in Goa is largely due to the migration from other states in India.

jcbrum

Another take on all this seems to change by the day.It seems they are now issuing 1 year tourist visas :

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewt...48&start=78 0

John

anjuna mark

All the figures are suspect, especially the early ones; probably they counted the holders of ration cards or the number of registered voters.
Anyway, I’m sure we can all agree that the population has indeed risen over the years. This has little to do with foreigners, unless they want to blame us for the economic boom.
The article also states a number for foreigners who have bought land in Goa, but fails to give a number for total land sales over the same period, so we have no context for those numbers.
It isn’t said whether the increase in land price is adjusted for inflation. I assume not; doing so would make the figures less dramatic.
It’s quite normal for the local population to bemoan their inability to purchase property, but we don’t hear similar moans about income rise caused by the same economy.
As I’ve always understood it, it has never been possible to buy coastal property in Goa from an average Goan wage. Property was either inherited or bought by returnees with outside money.
Life, as always, will be tough for many, easy for a few.
Just don’t blame us for that!