Enough! Goa residents are fed up with the tourist hordes

Loud music, loss of privacy, impact on culture and ecology among complaints

- Debarshi Dasgupta

As a doctor based in the western Indian state of Goa, Dr Inacio Fernandes needs a good night's sleep after working long hours at a stretch.

But such rest has eluded him in the last two years or so.

In fact, the 33-year-old goes to sleep wearing noise-cancelling headphones to block out distracting sounds. Even so, he still wakes up at odd hours.

The reason? Clubs located in his Anjuna village that blast electronic dance music (EDM) for tourists who flock to Goa to revel in its famed nightlife with parties that extend well into the wee hours.

"There have been Sunday mornings when I have got up at 7am listening to EDM and not being able to do anything about it," said Mr Fernandes.

Things came to a head in August as many residents from Anjuna and Vagator another neighbourhood around 1.5km away - hit the roads to protest against establishments they say play louder music than permissible, making their lives a hellish affair. They demanded better policing and enforcement of the country's noise pollution rules that ban playing of loud music after 10pm.

With these rules rarely enforced, noise pollution has robbed Goa's residents of their peace and harmed their health in what was once a quiet and idyllic region.

Mass tourism has also unleashed additional problems upon India's smallest state, which at around 3,702 sq km is roughly around four times the size of Singapore.

As Indian tourists travel with a vengeance after the Covid-19 pandemic, Goa is struggling with overcrowding and littering at its beaches, traffic jams, improper garbage disposal, water scarcity and degradation of its fragile ecology.

The number of tourists visiting Goa a state with a population of around 1.6 million has grown from around 5.2 million in 2015 to more than 8.5 million in 2023, including around 450,000 foreign visitors.