Environmental activists in Goa have taken a strong objection to the proposed ‘Sundown Tomatina Festival Goa-2011,' saying the event would be a “criminal wastage of commodities.”
The Tomatina festival is annually held in a town in Spain in which participants throw tomatoes at one another and get involved in the tomato fight purely for fun. The event has been planned by a Mumbai-based company in Goa and the organisers had earlier announced that the 12-hour event would be held on November 5 and is expected to attract more than 30,000 participants.
The organisers had claimed that they would be acquiring “non-rotten, but inedible” variety of tomatoes for the event.
However, the environmental activists have opposed it saying that holding such an event, when the country is facing food scarcity, is a criminal wastage of commodities.
The Botanical Society of Goa has said that such a wastage is a “moral outrage” in a nation that has people who cannot afford to buy subsidised food grains under the public distribution system.
“The event could well be prohibited under the Essential Commodities Act, 1952 (ECA) or some other Act or rules, including the Criminal Procedure Code, until the Food Security Bill becomes an Act that can prevent wastage of food,” Mr Minguel Braganza, Vice-President of the Intercontinental Network of Organic Farmers Organisation (INOFO), said.