Dr Joe D’Souza
The world today is ushering in the New Year 2020 with many among us resolving and committing to bring about a better tomorrow. We must contemplate and introspect on the year gone by. Our New Year’s resolutions are always centred around not committing the mistakes of the year gone by. The resolutions always beckon the hope and aspirations that we will leave the bygones as bygones and endeavour for a brighter future for our children in particular.
So as we resolve and dedicate ourselves for a better future, let me delve in the recent historical past dogging Goa in particular and find out whether we as Goans have learnt from history or are we destined to be condemned for ignoring the bitter lessons from our mistakes.
Yes, we always say, that we have to think globally but ensure that we act locally to global warming and undertake sustainable development for our global society at large. Sadly, we have been condemned to suffer acute distress and challenges to our very existence or survival. The impacts of global warming and sea-water level rise caused by the melting of polar ice and glaciers surely are adversely affecting the vast expanses of coastal Goa and the low-lying reaches of our river banks. Are Goans prepared to face coastal erosion, flooding and displacement of our population?
Interestingly, it is depressing that Goa is reeking and reeling into a series of man-made disasters. Our developmental models are centred around massive corruption, scams and widening gap between the rich and the poor. From an aggressive and dynamic agrarian society of yesteryears, we are a parasitic society today. Agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries and horticulture were decentralized in the past. There was plenty of freshwater in our springs, rivers, lakes. Bacteria-free potable water was there in every household well. Water is the basic and core requirement to fuel the growth of Goa. Sadly, today the centralized PWD pipeline water supplied from the Opa plant over River Khandepar is full of oxides of iron and visibly reddish brown and not crystal clear. In the 1960s we were forced to close down our wells, to secure centralized water supplied by the PWD.
We are churning scores of civil engineers and we have been adding on to the existing seven engineering colleges of Goa. We are churning out engineers who have messed up our water supply network. As of today, the entire city of Panaji is facing a water crisis. The hotels and other commercial establishments in the capital city have all added huge sumps to beat the two-hour water supply schedule by the PWD. The sad reality of today is that the residents do not get water as the sumps constructed by commercial units, including the casinos, not only usurp water, but hundreds of these around the city overflow during the period when water is released. Millions of litres of water go down the drain.
Goa of today has locals abandoning agriculture, fisheries, vegetable farming and orchards. Poultry, farming, floriculture and fisheries are today centralized and under the control of outstation mafia, with traditional fishermen, farmers and vendors making their living by migrating to Europe. Thanks to Portuguese colonial masters, who have bestowed upon us the goodness of the Portuguese passport and easy access to jobs within the European Union and other countries. Goa in the past produced internationally renowned doctors, engineers, architects, professionals in the field of music, art, literature, science, sports and parliamentarians too.
Today we see education, science and technology research on our environment sliding downhill. In the Goa of today, we see a drastic reduction in the budget allocations to these above sectors. Today, the youth in Goa are either jobless or at best working as waiters, bartenders, or shuffling cards or throwing dice at gambling centres, which are spread across the State on land and docked vessels in our once pristine rivers now dying of severe contamination and massive pollution. To add the nail to the coffin, Goa today has the dubious distinction of being a leader in the rising incidences of cancers, enteric infections, and persistent respiratory ailments.
The gates of hell are often opened wide with the best of intentions. Sadly the NGOs who are trying to save Mhadei waters for Goa in the tribunal are not research scientists or men equipped with quantified data to espouse the cause of Goa. The State government has not spent on research projects conducted by established hydrologists, marine geologists or experts studying the biodiversity of Goan flora, fauna but counted all hope only on lawyers, without the backing of scientific data on impacts of these man-made disasters for Goa of the future.
The main reason for Goa going downhill in terms of skill development and ushering in of knowledge-based economy is because we have a bunch of uneducated men in governance who impose their decisions with the help of half-baked bureaucrats, who are generalists and with no technical expertise or with laboratory-based research papers to their credit.
The developmental policy for Goa is against the sustainable and holistic development of Goans. How many Goans know or care about the fact that the entire budget for Science and Technology meant towards improving the quality of lives of Goans is totally usurped by the solid waste management division of the state for tackling garbage. Will Goans wake up to the parasites and parasitic form of governance of Goa, which is destroying us completely. Is a bloody revolution possible? Would the Goans reflect and ponder on the various issues which are destroying and devastating Goa as the people have allowed men devoid of vision and ability to shoulder the mantle of Goa governance? No doubt we have failed to harness the goodness of the primary sector of our economy and focused ourselves on the service sector or the tertiary sector to sustain the sagging Goan economy. Is it then a wonder to see drug-related deaths at our music festivals? We have forgotten the value of solar energy and bio productivity and become dependent on imports to run tourism as well as our day-to-day life.
We as people do not rise to the realities that our public servants are today acting as our masters and cheating us. Goa and Goans would be doomed and condemned for eternity if we ignore
our environment.
