In an obvious bid to be one-up on AAP’s election sop of free 300 units of electricity to every household in Goa, the State government has announced 16,000 litres of free drinking water per month, to every household from September 1, 2021.
In sum and substance, this will hardly serve to benefit the common man, going by Goa’s poor water distribution system, frequent breakdowns due to power outages, pipe-bursts and unattended damaged pipelines, due to which people in several parts of Goa are left without drinking water for most part of the year.
A better sop instead would be to lower the prices of petrol and diesel by cutting down the VAT on these fuels, as was done during the regime of the late chief minister Manohar Parrikar. This is the need of the hour which this government needs to redress instead.
