Environmental groups say it was not good for a country like India where food security and poverty are major issues.
Goa's November date with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara style Tomatina festival of Spain is in peril as environmental groups say it was not good for a country like India where food security and poverty are major issues.
Green organisations in the state have opposed the Sundown Tomatina Festival Goa-2011, scheduled to be held in two nightclubs in Panaji by a Mumbai-based event company.
Thousands of revellers are expected to participate in the tomato flinging frenzy that has its roots in the Spanish town of Bunol.
The Botanical Society of Goa (BSG) said in a statement here Saturday that holding the Tomatina festival in India was a case of moral outrage, especially in a country where food security is a major issue.
"The proposed festival is a moral outrage in a nation that has people too poor to even buy subsidised food grain from the Public Distribution System," the BSG said.
The organisers told the media Friday in Mumbai that the Sundown Tomatina Festival Goa-2011 would be a 12-hour event Nov 5 and was expected to attract over 30,000 revellers who would fling tomatoes at each other, jumping and dancing with water jets spraying.
"The festival is conceived by actor Rahul Raj Singh, his colleagues at Magnum Opus Films, with the support of Spain Consulate in Mumbai and Goa's tourism department," Ginu Joseph, director of the Mumbai-based Chrysolite Media Pvt Ltd had said.
The organisers have claimed that they would acquire tomatoes which are "not edible, but non-rotten" variety for the event.
Goa Tourism Development Corporation public relations officer Deepak Narvekar told IANS that no permissions had been granted by the tourism authorities in Goa for the festival yet.
"Permissions have not been granted yet," Narvekar said.
"Hosting a Tomatina festival may be good for some villages in Spain that have surplus tomato production," said Miguel Braganza, vice president of the Intercontinental Network of Organic Farmers Organisation (INOFO), which functions under the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement (IFOAM).
He called for a ban on the festival under the Essential Commodities Act, 1952.
"The festival can well be prohibited under the Essential Commodities Act, 1952 or some other Act or Rules including Criminal Procedure Code until the Food Security Bill becomes an Act that can prevent wastage of food," Braganza said.
He said Karnataka which was a major tomato supplier to Goa had already refused to allow a similar tomato festival in Bangalore and Mysore after upheaval by social activists and citizens.
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