Chief Manohar Parrikar, caught in his labyrinth of files anddecision making, may perhaps miss the month and the dates on his calendar, thesame devices he relied on to make deadlines for his promises.
His calendar, if he has the time to look, will tell him thatit’s January and soon the pages will move to February and then to March 9, thered letter day when he was sworn in as Chief Minister.
The pundits will get busy with Parrikar’s report card. But theneed is to deviate from a grading system and move towards a guiding system,with eff ective pressure points to ensure that the Chief Minister’s governmentcourse corrects or calibrates issues of agreed importance that are in a limbo.
The easy way will be to brand Parrikar just as any other anddismiss his promises as failed ones. This line of action would have beentotally in line if the previous Congress government was in power, because itwas a prisoner of its own corruption and inefficiency.
With Parrikar, Goa needs to still allow him the “work in progress”,explanation, because he has not yet completed even one fifth of his term. However,given the lack of movement on several key issues, the Work in Progress (WIP)explanation needs to be assessed, examined and constantly questioned.
The WIP card does not have an open ended validity. Thereneeds to be a closure and while there can’t be a black and white cut off ,since different issues will have different time frames, he can make “work inprogress” the leitmotif of governance by displaying real movement on keyissues, as follows:
Mining: The restart of mining in Goa doesn’t have justbottlenecks. The process is trapped in a watertight box. If the Supreme Courtagrees on the fallacious ten kilometer buffer zone that the Ministry ofEnvironment and Forest is insisting on, then everything else becomes irrelevant.The only glimmer, if at all, rests in the state of Goa convincing the SupremeCourt that it has taken effective steps to ensure clean and legal mining.
Parrikar’s belligerent cry for his own space and the right torule the state without interference from the court, will have sanctity onlywhen his government fi les the much awaited intervening petition in the ongoingSupreme Court case, asking for a freehand with the courts monitoring to reviveand restart mining. The delay in this process has further compounded the haplessnessof the industry. This needs to be expedited so that Parrikar’s good intentionstranslate into practical action.
The Regional Plan: The failure to formulate a complete peopleoriented Regional Plan has left the development process in complete jeopardyand limbo. The government has crossed repeated deadlines on sending the planback to the people. However, the process needs to go back to the drawing boardbefore thinking of keeping it open to the public. The Edgar Ribeiro method,argued eloquently by India’s best town planner, needs to be adopted. Ribeirohas drawn up a blueprint and sent it in a letter to Parrikar. He needs to readthis mail. Firstly the notified ODPs (Outline Development Plans) of towns andcities have to be included in RP 2021. Currently, one third of the state’spopulation in high value urbanised locations are outside the plan and thesuggestions process. Secondly, new industrial estates, eco-tourism zones andmicro industrial estates are a complete deviation from the original plan andneed to be out of the new plan. The government can bring reliable planners headedby Edgar Riberio on the table for a detailed debate on this. The problem is,vested interests, including architects in the State Level Committee, are beneficiariesof all the loopholes in the current ‘in limbo’ plan. Most importantly, a bottomup approach taking into cognisance the 73 and 74th amendments that grantspowers to panchayats to do ward level planning has to be introduced. In shortwe need a new Regional Plan.
Lokayukta: This government was formed as a pain relief againstcorruption. This medicine for this is to have a strong Lokaykta. But themendicant, Manohar Parrikar yet to find a Lokayukta to administer the anti-corruptionpill. Huge scams lie uncovered starting with the PWD, which is the motherdepartment of the treasury’s loot. Surely, finding the right Lokayukta cannottake so long. It needs to be fast tracked with a clear non-negotiable deadline.Now asking the people of Goa to find one will result in smirks and sniggersfrom a class, which has put Parrikar’s popularity on a short fuse. To be fairto the Chief Minister, he knows that he is a one man show in this government. Andhe can’t be blamed for this because that is a hard reality. Clearly the need tomeet expectations isn’t a match with the man hours or the men to achieve them.In balancing this ratio lies that key to Parrikar’s future works in progress.
