The monsoons have well and truly arrived and have been in fine form since Friday bathing the state in fresh showers and cool air and relief to the sun-scorched earth. But despite the monsoons arriving late -- more than five days after their normal arrival time -- the Goa government and its agencies including the municipal authorities have been entirely predictable in their preparedness for the rains.
All it took was a few hours of rain and the state of preparedness was there for all to see. The state capital of Panaji as well as other parts of the state were inundated with water, potholes appeared on roads across the state and the haphazard and half-hearted “monsoon preparedness” works were quickly exposed.
The Corporation of the City of Panaji, which is supposed to manage the state capital, which is home to the seat of power in the state and an important heritage city on the state’s tourism circuit wrote a sorry account of itself for its monsoon preparedness plans.
18th June Road, right in the heart of the central business district was quickly flooded in what has now become an annual tradition. City workers were seen hurriedly digging the road opposite the Mary Immaculate High School in a bid to unclog the drains that began to clog up even before the monsoons arrived. The less said about the state of the Panjim bus stand the better. The bus stand was incomprehensibly dirty covered with dirt and garbage floating in the water while the stagnant drain between the interstate bus stand overflowed and covered much of the bus stand making it impossible to walk through. The situation was not very different at other bus stands in the state exposing complete governmental apathy to the health and well-being of the ordinary citizens that the government of the day keeps boasting it cares about.
The Public Works Department hasn’t covered itself in glory either. Barely a few hours of rain and gaping potholes have emerged on several stretches of roads, especially the ones that were recently patched up after being dug up by the various departments, agencies and companies.
It isn’t as if the authorities can claim that the monsoons took them by surprise. On the contrary, the monsoons have arrived late by nearly five days and haven’t been particularly heavy either, unlike last year when the state was battered by cyclone Tauktae.
The issue clearly is a lack of will from the government to give adequate attention to the people of the state who use and need the state facilities the most. The government has no hesitation in spending hundreds of crores of rupees on bombastic infrastructure that is great to look at and may stand visibly tall but is of little use to the common citizenry who use public transport, the footpaths and the school children who can barely make it to school in a safe manner without having to navigate roads to school that seem to replicate a challenge in Takeshi’s castle.
We as citizens need to demand more from our governments and demand that they act and protest if they don’t is the only way to make the elected representatives walk the talk when it comes to delivering on their tall promises of making life better for their citizens and voters.
