Shakeout in Paradise ..........................................
Something has changed over the past year, the hitherto welcoming atmosphere in Goa had frosted over. ......................................... By Pamela D'Mello [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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) -- Feedback: Pamela D'Mello Cell 9850 461649 http://pameladmello.goa-india.org
