DR. JOE D’SOUZA
Election season is on and the capital city will be going to see yet another by-election on 19 th May due to the death of Manohar Parrikar, who until his demise was continuously re-elected to represent the capital city for over 25 years.
The sad reality of Panjim is that ever since liberation, voters of Panjim have elected individuals of various parties which included the MGP, Janata Party, Congress and finally the BJP, but strikingly none of those elected did anything significant to actually improve the quality of lives of residents and the ambience of Panjim over the last 50 years.
If we dispassionately look at the Panjim scenario during the last 50 years, the capital has been steadily degrading in every aspect of sustainability in the garb of “development”. Each and every vision document of prospective candidates for Panjim contains the promise 24x7x365 water supply for the residents, but till today, we do not get water potable and drinkable enough even for an hour daily. The bursting of corroded pipelines is a weekly phenomenon. To add salt to injury, corrupt PWD engineers and officials ensure that only restaurants, commercial units, casino offices dwellings acquired on hire by business houses get water at the cost of the residents.
I have even written to the vigilance department to nab and punish the guilty PWD staff, who dance their way from rags to riches by catering to the needs of the gambling lobby and event managers at the cost of the suffering residents. The paradox is that our city wells which supplied 24x7x365 water were closed down in the sixties in order to seek PWD water.
Late Parrikar had promised Panjimites 24x7 water using Japanese technology and aid from JICA. Alas, even now water is scarce. What the successive governments did was further pollute the underground water of Panjim, with sewage releases from new high rise buildings and commercial complexes mushrooming all over Panjim as “Matchbox “ structures, far away from the exquisite and majestic houses or bungalows which once adorned the capital city.
Acute commercialization of Panjim by non-residents, gambling industry, festivals, IFFI, trade fairs in Panjim’s open spaces, not only activate crime, cause nuisance, but also make the old, feeble and the disabled sick and weary.
The Corporators and legislators have been only filling up their coffers while the residents suffer. Parking slots for every new building have been converted into garbage releasing-commercial units or shops and pedestrians walkways in Panjim are used as “parking spaces”. The Corporators representing the wards in which Panjim jetty area comes under have never, ever been seen to attend to the water, sewage, Mandovi pollution, parking and the litany of woes, which I have been addressing at a personal level on various environmental fora.
Every candidate worth his salt to-date, including the “U-turn” expert late Manohar Parrikar vowed to remove casinos from River Mandovi and solve parking woes, but Panjim’s woes are only multiplying. Today, even the “Non-Parking Zone” near my residence is packed with vehicles whose owners were in the gambling dens and cruise boats and an “ambulance” requisitioned to take me to hospital in an emergency was unable to enter and help me.
Today Panjim is the most disabled unfriendly city. Raj Vaidya and his son Neel are amongst a handful of Goans, who work tirelessly day and night to ensure that the unfriendly city gutters, drains and pavers are placed in order to make road crossing for elderly and the disabled safe. It goes to the credit of Vaidya, who inspite of his commitment to his own profession spares time to address the grave problems of the disabled.
Sadly, for Panjim and Panjimites those who work tirelessly to make Panjim and Goa a better place to dwell are themselves living on the edge of existence. This is because as Atanasio Monserrate once said, the “Bad Apples” are today in charge of the governance of Panjim.
Everyone today seems to say Panjim needs “Employment and Development” as our needs. We all know Parrikar gave employment to thousands of casino managing youth from the North East, who are today a drain on the suffering residents of Panjim, and have made Panjim a living hell and Porvorim a “neo-voters inferno”.
Panjimites, who will go out to vote on 19 May are today living with hope and aspiration. Our St. Inez creek is reclaimed and a cess-pool. Our youth are unable to swim across River Mandovi any more as they once did to the tune of traditional music. Panjim and Panjimites must wake up. Goan politicians till today have not uttered a single word of protest against the CoP terminal building coming up at the jetty, killing marine biodiversity and making the jetty unavailable to the common man.
Paradoxically, the entire CoP area is stinking of faecal pollution and urea pollution. The pollution control board is formant on the issue that iron, chromium, arsenic and other heavy metals due to industrial activity at the jetty is adversely affecting commercial fisheries. The Goa State Biodiversity Board seems to be a toothless tiger. We are to blame for formalin-laced fish from outside. Why do Goans remain silent when rampant biomagnifications of pollutants at CoP jetty is today the main cause of cancer, enteric and respiratory diseases. Who will fight for the health related issues of Panjimites? So far no politician has done anything positive for the residents. We only live in hope and by faith.
