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Sangath, www.sangath.com, is looking to build a centre for services, training and research and seeks to buy approx 1500 to 2000 sq mtrs land betweeen Mapusa and Bambolim and surrounding rural areas. Please contact: contac...@sangath.com or yvo...@sangath.com or ph+91-9881499458 http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-July/180028.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: George Pinto on 21 July >So before you try and get me to answer your diversionary questions why >don't you tell us how many of the transactions you believe are legal and on >what basis considering two factors: the state of illegal real estate >transactions in Goa and the NAVHIND article. Wake up George and let us have your answers. Here is something new for you to chew over! Foreigner fallout. Herald 26 July 2009 "Early bookings of holiday packages to Goa by British tourists are showing a 20 per cent drop over last year. This may well be expected after air fares and hotel rates have gone up, and the western countries are looking at an economic slowdown that could well settle into a sustained recession or, even worse, stagflation. But there's more where that came from. Not only that, the widespread negative publicity of the Scarlet Keeling case, followed by Revenue Minister Dayanand Narvekar's move to stop registration of property transactions involving foreigners has had a massive fallout. Recently, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) did a series of shows on the issue, talking to a wide range of foreigners who bought houses, apartments or started small restaurants in Goa after going through a perfectly legal process, abiding by all the requirements of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Now, hundreds of these perfectly law abiding people are finding that they cannot sell the properties they bought, owing to a dubious rule enacted by the Goa government. And, when ministers like Churchill Alemao make baseless but dramatic statements that properties of foreigners will be 'seized' and 'auctioned', it causes outrage. What ought to cause even more outrage is the fact that while the cases of hundreds of law-abiding foreign small property owners have been referred to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for investigation, the actual cause for concern - large properties bought by shadowy individuals illegally - remains hidden on government files, even after several requests by the ED. This kind of chicanery shows that the government is not serious about taking on the mafias of this world. Rather, it seeks to distract the people's attention from them by flooding the ED with cases that have few, if any, illegalities. All these issues have also contributed to the general feeling of disenchantment among those who were Goa's most ardent champions in Britain. The very people who held out this state as an ideal destination for the British are now changing their tune, thanks to the way the government has treated them. Word of mouth, any businessman will tell you, is the most powerful of promotion and advertisement strategies. If Goa is being badmouthed in Britain by the very people who earlier sang its praises, it is bound to have an impact. It is time that the tourism industry in the state also realised that Goa is no longer the low-cost destination it used to be. South East Asia - mainly Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia - offer comparable facilities at much lower rates. Unless they can gear up to take on the competition, in bad times, people will always go for the lower-cost destination. In which case, as things stand now, Goa loses." ===================================================