Goa gleams like a jewel in the Arabian Sea, its sun-drenched beaches whispering promises of escape, where azure waves cradle barefoot dreams and the air hums with the lazy rhythm of susegad—that effortless Goan grace. Palm-fringed shores, vibrant markets, and sunsets that paint the sky in molten gold: this is the paradise peddled to the world. Yet, peel back the postcard veneer, and a shadow-self emerges—sleazy, corrupt, festering with the rot of greed. For those who live here, it is a place sinking under the weight of stolen land, dirty money, and trafficked drugs.
Birch by Romeo Lane, a glitzy Arpora nightclub packed with partygoers, went up in flames in early December, killing at least 25 people and injuring dozens more. Emergency exits didn’t exist where they should have, safety clearances were allegedly ignored, and demolition orders that should have shuttered the club lay buried in bureaucratic dust. The club’s owners—the Luthra brothers—fled the country before surfacing in Thailand, where they were detained and later brought back.
Fringed by palms and washed by an Arabian Sea that turns molten gold at sunset, Goa’s beaches have long promised a kind of easy grace—wide, breathing shores where fishing nets dry in the sun and the horizon feels uncluttered. It is this beauty, fragile and magnetic, that now frames a far uglier truth.
The tragedy exposed a pattern. For years, locals have complained about illegal constructions mushrooming across the coastline: restaurants creeping into sand dunes, hotels swallowing wetlands, bars operating without licences, nightclubs built on agricultural land, beach shacks expanding into multi-storey commercial structures overnight. “Every illegal bar you see, every shack that pops up overnight, someone has been paid to look away,” says 62-year-old shopkeeper Rita Afonso from Anjuna, who has watched farmland around her vanish into unlicensed lounges. “We’re losing our home,” she rues.
Fisherman Celso D’Mello in Arambol puts it even more bluntly: “They build where the sea should breathe. They build where turtles nest. They’d build on our graves if they could sell tickets.” In early December, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) moved in on an extraordinary illegal land-grab racket, attaching more than Rs 1,268 crore worth of prime plots in Anjuna, Assagao and Ucassaim. The arrest of the accused, including Shivshankar Mayekar, marked one of the most audacious real-estate scams in the state’s history. Another ED chargesheet detailed how a second syndicate quietly stole over 50 properties worth another Rs 232 crore, using fake succession deeds.
Land isn’t the only commodity trafficked in plain sight. From rave highs to riverine smuggling routes, narcotics have carved out their own discreet empire—fed by the careful cultivation of “party-friendly Goa,” a brand that sells permissiveness as pleasure and turns excess into an unspoken promise for those who know where to look. Police and ED records of December 2024 show foreign nationals using drug trials to stall deportation, German and Russian suspects caught with LSD, ketamine and cocaine. A German man was arrested with LSD tabs and ketamine worth nearly Rs 24 lakh in Vagator—a bust investigators say represents a single drop in a beachwide tide. A federal probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act dug deeper still, filing a chargesheet against seven people, including two foreigners, accused of smuggling multiple kilos of cocaine.
And still, the tourism machine roars. More than 5.5 million tourists visited Goa in the first half of 2025. “People come for paradise,” says taxi driver Vishnu Naik. “But they don’t see what’s happening beneath. It’s like we’re living under two suns—one bright for outsiders, one burning for us.”
Burning Paradise
A once languorous village state—defined by green expanses, mangroves, and an unhurried coastline—is being stripped bare. Construction flourishes in Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) and agricultural zones. Hillocks like Reis Magos are flayed, raising fears of a Wayanad-like catastrophe. The slide became irreversible during Covid, when Goa threw its doors wide open. Political brass, bureaucrats, and the well-heeled moved in. The susegad land of beaches, shacks, xiit kodi, and straightforward Goans was methodically overrun.
Today, the lack of regulation, enforcement, and deterrent laws has turned the “sunny city” into a “sin city”. “It’s a systematic process of bribes—the numbers, price, clear cut, and accepted—from top down,” says Gaurav Bakshi, activist and founder of HelpdesQ.in. “Officers don’t shy away from quoting rates. Conversion sanads, property licences, plan approvals—each has a price. If a five-room villa needs a guest house licence, it’s `5,00,000.”And where construction invades CRZs, worse inevitably follows. Heta Pandit, co-founder and director of Heritage First Goa, is unequivocal. “Goa had the potential to become a model state. Instead, here we are, looking at our natural wealth and potential squandered with nothing left for the future. Its natural resources—mountains, forests, magnificent rivers and life-giving agricultural systems—was a legacy for continuance, not consumption alone. The real issue is giving permissions—or turning a blind eye to illegal activity—that is damaging Goa’s fragile and sensitive environment.”
The demand is simple, yet elusive: honest governance, legal accountability, and political will—to give back, not just ruthlessly take. Activist Swapnesh Sherlekar of the Goencho Swabhiman Party, who has faced repeated legal intimidation for his petitions, is blunt. “The Birch fire cannot be taken in isolation,” he says. “The construction should not have been in the middle of a salt pan—legally it cannot be constructed. How was construction approved? There is no proof of a Conversion Sanad under the Goa Land Revenue Code. The Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority says it is outside its domain, even as the Regional Plan and Outline Development Plan show a salt pan.” He points to a trail of ignored warnings. “This property had multiple red flags—notices since 2023. These gross violations were allegedly ignored. What vanished was a wetland that protected Goa’s biodiversity.”
On November 4, 2025, a legal notice seeking immediate demolition was issued by senior state advocate Rohit Bras Dsa, citing “an alarming pattern of statutory violations that have remained inadequately addressed despite multiple complaints, inspections, show-cause notices and even a formal demolition order.” The notice warned of “brazen contraventions of law, and an immediate threat to public safety and ecological integrity.”
River Grab
The state’s rivers are working waterways that carry fishing boats, absorb floods, drain fields, and hold together a fragile coastal ecology—serene ribbons of water shaded by mangroves and coconut palms, where mornings unfold in mist, birdsong, and a slow, tidal grace that is unmistakably Goan. Yet along the Chapora, Mandovi, Sal and their creeks, river edges harden into private frontage. In Morjim, on the Chapora riverbank, two fishermen have taken the state to court after alleging that a high-end bar-restaurant complex continues to operate inside the no-development zone despite a formal demolition order. The structures they describe are not temporary shacks but permanent works—concrete built right up to the river, including a swimming pool—cutting off customary fishing access. A demolition order dated September 7, 2025, directed removal within a fixed period. Months later, the fishermen say, the riverbank remained unchanged.
“We used to pull our boats here,” says Ramesh Naik, a third-generation fisherman from Morjim. “Now there’s concrete where the river should breathe. It feels like the bank has been sold.” That sense of dispossession echoes upriver on the Mandovi. In late 2025, proceedings before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) flagged six jetties operating without valid permissions. The petitioner in that case told the tribunal that despite written complaints, the directions had not been meaningfully implemented.
“First it’s a ramp, then lights, then a shed,” says Savita Kamat, who lives near the Mandovi backwaters. “One day you realise the river has a reception desk.” What follows, she adds, is visible even without measurements—floating garbage, oil slicks, waste drifting into the backwaters. “The river carries everything we throw at it,” says Anthony D’Souza, a boat owner from Ribandar. “And nobody takes responsibility for what comes back.”
Further south, on the Sal river in Velim, the coastal authority ordered demolition after finding that a structure within the no-development zone had been expanded horizontally and vertically. Locals say this is where rules are most often bent. “They call it repair, then renovation,” says Maria Fernandes, who has lived by the Sal for over four decades. “By the time anyone checks, there’s another floor and a different purpose.”
In Velha Goa, inspections ordered after tribunal intervention recorded multiple structures and a compound wall inside protected coastal classifications, including intertidal land and a bay’s no-development zone. Intertidal areas are not vacant plots; they are living edges where water moves in and out, shaping drainage and ecosystems. “The tide doesn’t recognise compound walls,” says João Rodrigues, a long-time resident. “But builders behave as if the river has agreed to stay put.”
In Candolim, the Sina Hotel became one of the most visible symbols of CRZ violation on the open coast. Built within the prohibited zone along the beach, the structure was found to violate coastal regulations, and after prolonged litigation, the NGT ordered its demolition. “If every violation was treated like Sina,” says D’Souza, “half the coast would look very different today.”
Pressure on Goa’s waters is not limited to what rises above ground. In 2025, sand mining in the Mandovi system came under legal challenge over environmental clearances and CRZ restrictions, prompting tribunal directions that mining should not proceed while the matter was under consideration. To people who live along the river, the contradiction is obvious. “They squeeze the river from the sides and hollow it from below,” says Naik. “Then they act surprised when erosion and flooding get worse.”
For locals, the cost is cumulative and deeply personal. Access paths disappear. Fishing grounds shrink. As Kamat puts it, “The river doesn’t belong to anyone. That’s why everyone thinks they can take a piece.”
Licensed Lawlessness
Goan clubs thrum after dark—bare feet on cool stone, basslines spilling into palm-salt air, laughter rising with the tide.
They’re joyful crossroads where locals and wanderers lose track of time, stitched together by music, moonlight, and an easy, unbothered grin. But Agnelo Fernandes, former MLA of Calangute, says what many in Goa now whisper only in private: a vast number of these clubs are operating without proper licences, and the state’s sudden enforcement drive is less reform than fire-fighting. With no official nightclub licence category in Goa, several nightclubs function under restaurant permits. As reported by a national media platform, Calangute alone has 17 such establishments. Recent closures underline the scale of the problem. Goya Club was shut down, allegedly for operating on agricultural land. Café CO2 in Vagator was sealed for reportedly lacking a fire safety certificate and for structural violations. Bastian Riviera, abutting the Morjim backwaters, is alleged to stand within a no-development zone despite a demolition order dated September 7, 2025. Elsewhere, a bar-restaurant has constructed a concrete swimming pool on the Chapora riverbank—an apparent violation of CRZ rules.
“All these clubs are operating without proper licenses—bribes are the norm. There is a High Court order to stop music after 10 o’clock, to check occupancy certificates—there is no due diligence, no implementation of the law,” says Fernandes. “Going after shack owners as scapegoats is not the answer.”
Illegality is slowly corroding Goa’s robust, peaceful, unassuming social fabric. The famed je ne sais quoi has given way to unease and disquiet. This is the same state that was once a pioneer in land-use planning as early as 1986—an approach, notes activist and UC Berkeley PhD student Tahir Noronha, that “other developing nations are only now beginning to pursue.”
Yet recent legislative moves tell another story. “In the last Assembly session, the government introduced three new amendments to existing laws,” explains Sherlekar. “All illegal construction till 2014 can now be legalised, with provisions to regularise houses up to 400 sq m. Paradoxically, the scheme is called Majhe Ghor, which in Konkani means ‘my house’.”
Fernandes highlights the abuse of a law originally meant to help locals build temporary structures in areas where permanent construction is prohibited. “Some locals now rent these shacks to outsiders. Even state properties are leased out for hefty sums. How will these businesses profit by selling only fish and alcohol? They have to resort to other means.” Enter gambling, drugs, and prostitution.
Fear keeps many silent. Others, like activist Gaurav Bakshi, continue regardless, despite legal actions against him. “If you don’t give in, threats and intimidation follow,” he says. “Even a regular citizen running a simple business is scared their place will be shut down or construction stalled. Notices are used to harass. Everybody is misusing power. Nobody cares about compliance.”
Dean D’Cruz, sustainable architecture expert, president of Goa Foundation and principal at Mozaic Design Combine, sees a deeper structural failure. “The government had no policy, so it relied on beach tourism. We are working because of casinos, reduced alcohol rates, and an image that invites people to believe they can get every kind of pleasure here. Money is the only criterion.”
As tourism stakeholders enter politics, a senior bureaucrat points to a telling metric: the exponential rise in the wealth of many MLAs. “They have allowed illegality to continue,” D’Cruz says bluntly.
Zoned Out
Once held up as a rare Indian success story in environmental foresight, Goa’s Regional Plan has been hollowed out. When the plan was first formulated in 1986, Goa was only beginning to awaken to tourism. As the first state in India to adopt zoning across its entire geography, Goa divided land into settlement and non-settlement zones—agriculture, orchards, forests, hills, and eco-sensitive areas. Growth was allowed, but contained.
“In doing that, Goa did something that planners today in the West are still talking about—it brought in a growth boundary. You could build within the settlement pockets of a village,” says environmental planner Noronha. For nearly two decades—from 1986 to the early 2000s—the system largely held. Villages grew, but not at the cost of hillocks, khazans, fields and forests. Then, gradually, the rot set in. “Today the plan and the state lie in tatters,” he adds.
The turning point, activists argue, came with political meddling and legal sleight of hand. The most damaging blow came in 2017, with the introduction of Section 16B to the Town and Country Planning Act. It legalised what critics call spot zoning—allowing private landowners to seek special permissions to build in non-settlement zones. Environmental lawyer Sherlekar says, “This is a state-sponsored real estate scam.” According to him, the process is alarmingly simple. “All landowners—mostly outsiders—have to do is write to the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department saying there is an ‘error’ in zoning, that settlement land was wrongly marked as agricultural or natural cover. And they get permission.”
A March 2024 notification only sharpened the problem. The fee for “correction of zones” was raised from Rs 200 to Rs 1,000 per sq m. “It was like zone shopping—you pay fees, get the desired zone,” Sherlekar says. Even construction limits were quietly diluted. “More provisions were given for additional height and Floor Area Ratio—up to 20 per cent higher,” he adds.
The erosion extends beyond planning into forest governance. In 2023, both the TCP and forest minister opposed a proposed tiger reserve corridor before the High Court. “The government itself objected. The court ruled against it. Then the forest minister said he would challenge the order in the Supreme Court,” says Sherlekar. “When the authority itself works against forests and wildlife—who do you trust?”
Tourism stakeholders see the fallout on the ground. Jack Sukhija, president of the Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG), is unequivocal: “One thing is clear: the crisis has been facilitated by the administration, which has either chosen to look the other way or been an active participant. Earlier, most investors were locals or people who lived in Goa and therefore understood its ethos. Today, owners do not live here; they invest and expect management to run everything.”
Shadow Economy
According to Fernandes, hafta raj had Birch allegedly paying Rs 25 lakh a month. Others, he says, paid far more. The scale of this parallel economy has made Goa fertile ground for organised crime, fuelling drugs, prostitution and money laundering. “The famed Tito’s Lane—each establishment is paying Rs 2 lakh to Rs 8 lakh per month. People ask for proof—unfortunately, there is no money trail in bribes,” says Fernandes.
A popular DJ and former nightclub consultant, speaking on condition of anonymity, describes how black money moves through casinos, real estate and hospitality. “Goa is a cash-heavy industry. Drugs were always a problem in Goa, but never this blatant. Prostitution goes hand in hand with casinos attracting high-net-worth individuals who demand all kinds of services.” For casino-goers, the sex trade has found cover in massage parlours and spas in Panjim. With rising tourist inflows, activists warn of growing human trafficking under the guise of “well-paying jobs.” Fernandes asks the obvious question. “Are you telling me the police don’t know about it? If you’re paying performers Rs 25 lakh to a crore, how are these establishments making money?” Goa’s trafficking pipeline has acquired a distinctly Russian accent—young women arriving on tourist visas, quickly absorbed into a shadow economy that runs through nightclubs, beach shacks, and rented villas. What looks like leisure tourism often masks coercion, exploitation, and illegal stays, with occasional busts revealing the darker side: two spas in Colva were recently sealed after raids rescued nine women and saw three suspects arrested in a prostitution racket, and Goa police have even booked Russian nationals for illegal stays and related offenses as authorities try to clamp down on visa abuse and exploitation.
Many global tourist destinations levy a second-home tax to curb speculation. Goa does not. And the numbers are damning. He argues that Goa should tax by domicile. “For a government job in Goa you need 15 years of continuous residence. Unless you domicile in Goa for 15 years, you should pay a second-house tax on all residential and commercial properties,” explains Noronha. Such a move, he says, would significantly boost state revenues.
With activism still alive, and a few brave voices willing to speak up despite personal cost, the real Goa—its tourism success story rooted in balance and restraint—feels lost. Yet, against the lapping blue waters of reform, it still aches to shine.