Our Festival of Lights is here but in Goa its gloom and doom on all fronts. There can be no festivity with potholed roads everywhere, very erratic water and power supply. Besides, due to lack of vision and prompt corrective measures, the Goan economy continues in a muddle bringing no cheer to the small businesses in particular. The common man is suffering and public agitations across Goa.
We are facing the brunt of that endless greed of our politicians who are adding more concrete buildings to an already badly battered Goa without caring to first put the required basic infrastructure in place and with no respect for our fragile and deteriorating environment.
The garbage and sewage discharge problem has reached a point of crisis and the government has also failed to tackle the chronic stray dogs and cattle menace. Proper healthcare needs to be provided to the poorest of the poor in hospitals and health centers across the State as we cannot allow lives to be lost on account of lack of proper medical care. Creating quality educational facilities and delivering a good and dependable public transport system should have been the thrust of those in Power. Instead they have successfully transformed Goa into a Gambling, Prostitution, Narcotics and Crime hub.
For a State exchequer reeling under acute financial distress, as an austerity measure the government should have stayed away from pompous needless projects, while also not funding and being part of extravagant expenditure. On account of the intentional follies of this uncaring government we are today left to partake in the Festival of Darkness with not even a glimmer of hope or a chink of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
But let us still hope that the government burns its demons of personal greed, neglect and incompetence so that the people of Goa can celebrate a victory of good over evil and by so doing we can hope and pray for a miracle that at least Diwali 2021 will be full of glow and a real Festival of Lights worth celebrating.
AIRES RODRIGUES, Ribandar
