DR. JOE D’SOUZA
Within a fortnight of this article appearing in print we will have the results to the four bypolls as well as the two Lok Sabha seats.
The residents of Panjim, knowing Manohar Parrikar’s stature both at the local as well as at the national level, always hoped that he would at some point of time, deliver quality life. The late leader was accepted by all and sundry as an excellent leader of the opposition. With zeal and enthusiasm he worked as a leader of opposition to expose the mining scams, the menace of casinos, vowed to bring in 24x7 water supply, promised to get Panjim out of the garbage imbroglio, and convinced us that the St. Inez creek would be restored to its pristine glory.
Parrikar and myself not only worked together as members of the JNNURM core committee, but various sub committees planning to drain monsoon water from flooding the low lying regions, ensuring monsoon showers do not flood city streets, and landslides do not occur on the Altinho slopes and cause destruction to the houses lying below the slope all around Panjim, the “Tigur bhain” project at St. Inez, etc.
The commitments which Parrikar made and hoped to deliver between 2007 to 2012, being entrusted by then CM Digambar Kamat who nominated the Panjim MLA as the chairman of the sub-committees looking after the above mentioned projects. After he assumed office as CM, all JNNURM projects came to naught.
Practically all the iconic projects submitted to the centre under JNNURM worth over Rs.700 crores, were shelved and a new Initiative under “Imagine Panjim” was initiated, which we now know is a poor replica of the JNNURM initiative of Manmohan Singh’s UPA I & II.
Today the SMART city initiative of which Sidharth Kunkalienkar is chairman has only catalyzed the destruction of Panjim gardens by concretising the green ambience; by transforming the “Rose garden” near Geeta Bakery into a concrete jungle devoid of greenery and the beautiful rose plants of yore.
As of now, the Congress party is going hammer and tongs at the BJP and it’s Panjim candidate, for doing precious nothing to comfort and console the suffering Panjimites and depriving them of the existing “lungs of Panjim” in the form of plant
biodiversity.
We do not get water even for one hour each day, with sewage water often flowing through the pipes. We do not have a garbage treatment plant. New buildings and restaurants are permitted without SW Management in Panjim being in place. It is absolutely atrocious that there are six serious candidates vying for the lone Panjim seat but none are serious enough to take on the CoP for totally damaging the Mandovi river front. The removal of casinos has been promised on the Congress candidate’s manifesto. However no politician has assured us that the river front of Mandovi would retain its pristine grace and put to use for societal usage as a site for recreation.
I have collected information under RTI about the ‘Terminal building’ coming up on the water front, with conditional approval from the coastal zone management authorities. Sadly today we see the fish ecology and marine biodiversity is adversely affected as over 50 workers of Kargwal Construction Pvt. Ltd. from Mumbai, or the GSIDC has not bothered to carry out EIA studies, and the Goa State Biodiversity Board ensures that the gene pool is not adversely affected by the open defecation, urination, drilling industrial wastes, or garbage does not contaminate the river.
We all know of the formalin scare we still are in due to imported fish from outstation, coming into Goa from other states in our country.
But we refuse to believe that industrial activities, without permission, scrutiny and supervision of Goa State Pollution Control Board, GCZMA, GSBB, Inspectorate of Factory Boilers and Industrial Service, the scientists at NIO and Goa University, now happening at the Panjim Jetty would allow pollutants by the ignorant labour force to catalyse the bio-magnification of the pollutants via the food chain and render our marine resource dangerously unfit for human consumption.
The CoP has planned a restaurant too at the terminal building and the kitchen wastes from it surely would lead to eutrophication and generate toxic algal bloom and fish
mortality.
Being retired, I do not have active laboratory research support to validate my claim, through on site chemical and biological analysis at the CoP jetty for the moment.
However, I have witnessed dead crabs, clams, diseased fouling barnacles and biofilms. Further research on the impacts of the “terminal building” adversely affecting oyster, clam and mussel ought to have been done to help protect our ecosystem and genetic biodiversity. The situation at the jetty site would invite flooding of Panjim city.
The BJP government has failed to protect the Mandovi ecosystem and the health of Panjimites particularly. The people of Panjim would have to speak up on 19th May and their anger show on 23rd May.
