Washed out road surfaces, broken / sunken pavements, jutting manhole covers, collapsing retaining walls, overflowing drains... you name it and Goa has it. This malaise is not confined to the purported smart city of Panaji but also to Margao and other cities across the state. Our CM tomtoms about Swayampoorna Goa, Viksit Goa etc. exactly on the lines of what PM Narendra Modi does on the national scale. Sawant misses no opportunity to crow about Goa being the no 1 state in infrastructure development and thanks Modi no end. Well yes...Goa is no 1 , but from the bottom. The minister in charge of the TCP department is busy facilitating conversion of agricultural land to buildable zones and framing laws to hand over whatever is left of Goa to the builder's lobby and real estate sharks from Delhi and Mumbai. It is now a foregone conclusion that Goa as we know it will vanish forever in pursuit of so called 'progress' and the mantris will be laughing all the way to the bank. The decline is irreversible, only the process is being slowed down, courtesy NGOs and public spirited individuals whose hearts beat for our land.
