With 170% growth in a decade, luxury hotels are sparking conflict in Goa

Nearly 200 hectares of land -or as much as 374 football fields-is involved in seven tourism-related conflicts, affecting about 3,100 people in the state

“Our village is the size of a coconut shell, how can it take five big resorts?” former sailor Anthony D’Silva let the question hang in the air as a luxury car whizzed past on the narrow village road that leads to Arossim beach in south Goa.

A typical Goan village road, roughly five metres wide, curves several times around tiled-roof homes, under a perennial tree cover, before opening up at a dead end amid sand dunes near the Arabian Sea.

Two resorts already operate on a four-kilometre stretch near Arossim beach, and developers have proposed three more—two of them on