MARGAO
Goa Forward chief, MLA Vijai Sardesai on Sunday said that Goa government had ignored the wakeup calls to tone up the level of preparedness in fire-fighting operations, especially of the magnitude of the ongoing forest fire incidents reported across the State.
He said the government had several wakeup calls in the last few years, but none of them has been taken seriously. “The first one was in the Final Report “ State Wise Risk Assessment, Infrastructure and Institutional Assessment dated November 2012 prepared by RMSI for Directorate General NDRF & Civil Defence (Fire) Ministry of Home Affairs, where they had pointed out the gaps in the requirement in personnel and equipment for Goa in relation to the State’s population,” he said.
He added: “They had recommended that every fire station make a risk assessment report where all possible fire hazards that can occur from factory fires, forest fires, etc are outlined.”
Sardesai said the second wakeup call came in 2019 when the draft State Action Plan for Climate Change was prepared. He said the report had clearly warned that Goa would suffer from forest fires. “The budget for implementing this plan was estimated at Rs 46 crore but this government which has crores of rupees to spend on events that glorify them, did not spend a single rupee on the safety of the people. They didn’t even adopt the plan,” he charged.
The Goa Forward chief said the third wakeup call came when the Berger factory was engulfed by fire, which is the biggest factory in Goa, and a standing environmental disaster of all time. “The fire brigade in the district was not enough to fight the fire, so they had to call for equipment from other locations more than 70 kms away,” he said.
Saying that several dozen hectares of cashew plantation are destroyed leaving the farmers desperate and distressed since this was the harvest season, he said the government has not announced any compensation for their losses yet. The government has no plans to prevent fires from happening anywhere, and also no plan to manage them, or rehabilitate those affected by them.
The wrong priorities of this government ensure that disasters are all manmade, and their incompetence makes sure that when it occurs, they have no answer.
