It’s bizarre that several parts of Goa today have taller buildings than many parts of Delhi. Why is Goa going vertical when its population is only a fraction of Delhi’s?
The entire National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) had a population of 1.68 crores as per 2011 Census while that of Goa stood at just 14.6 lakhs. Clearly, Goa doesn’t face the kind of population pressure that Delhi does.
Despite that, multi-storey structures are coming up not only in the city areas of Panaji and Mapusa but also in the villages of Calangute and Candolim.
Interestingly, South Delhi has shown resistance to verticalisation. In the last decade, not many tall skyscrapers have cropped up in this part of Delhi. It appears that the government and the civil society of South Delhi have greater will to prevent it from going vertical than the government and people of Goa.
Besides, the growth of Gurgaon and Noida has resulted in a number of businesses moving there from Delhi, which too has eased the population pressure on Delhi. Without that, Delhi would have been more crowded with people and taller buildings.
But interesting question is: Why have the planners in Goa not learnt from Delhi example? Why have they not planned for areas like Gurgaon and Noida, which could have decongested parts of Goa?
While people are leaving Delhi to set up businesses in Gurgaon and Noida, everyone wants to come to Panaji for business in Goa, which is making it crowded.
A number of businessmen have moved to Panaji from Vasco, Ponda and Mapusa. This is because apart from Panaji other cities of Goa don’t have good infrastructure like quality bandwidth, bus connectivity, etc.
It’s really sad that such apathy is shown towards planning in Goa. So far Goa has remained ahead of most parts of India when it comes to planning. But it seems that our government and planners have given up now.
Their only solution to planning is road widening or ultra-expensive flyovers. When narrow village lanes are widened in Goa, no one in the government cares about how it affects the lives of people there.
Delhi has its share of poor planning too. One very often comes across residential areas with really narrow roads. However, almost everywhere the approach roads are really wide in Delhi.
In the event of an emergency, wider approach roads help in ambulance or fire safety vehicle in reaching the needy. Surprisingly in Goa, approach roads are narrow in even cities like Panaji and Mapusa.
It’s high time that the government of Goa realizes that holistic planning is beyond one flyover project or some road widening exercise. It requires planning for decades in advance and taking a firm stand against all sort of vested interests hell bent upon taking the focus away from planning to commercial interest.
