It was heartening to read in a section of the media about a man called Umesh Daya Gaonkar in remote Cotigao village in Canacona. He has become a savior for the suffering sugarcane farmers. This farmer purchases the sugarcane from the farmers at more than the government procurement price. He has set up an industry to convert sugarcane into jaggery. Subsequently, he has gone one step further and hands over the sugarcane bagasse free of cost to the dairy farmers to be used as cattle feed, thereby saving them the cost of buying cattle feed.
This is true grassroots vertical and horizontally integrated development. Unfortunately, the government seems to have fallen in love with mega destructive developmental projects that destroy the environment and enrich the deep pockets of industrialists and politicians. Not a month passes by without opposition to a proposed widening of road. Meanwhile, small works like sluice gate and river bund repairs are ignored leaving these defunct, as a result inundating fertile fields and lands. The grassroots development that the Gaonkars have undertaken to preserve what is left of Goa is the need of the hour.
What Umesh Daya Gaonkar has done is sustainable grassroots development. May his tribe increase.
