In the letters to the Editor on 15 January 2015 writes a disgruntled tourist Sean Murray from Cape Town: “ I feel Goans will miss out on a well-deserved Industry. Lobby through your Councilors and Government, set up your own bodies as you seem to be paying taxes.”.We see such letters every other day appearing in newspapers from foreign tourists who hang their boots for good, due to what little Goa offers them. I wrote a letter to the Chief Minister, Mr. Parsekar some time ago stating the deplorable condition of his own home town beach – Arambol and the village square littered with every type of filth, general uncleanliness and wayward parking. But alas! a complaint from an ordinary, concerned citizen apparently found the dustbin and no action whatsoever seems to have been taken; neither does the Panchayat seems to be doing anything about it.
Of what use is all the pomp and publicity our politicians resort to wielding the broom for press cameras on National Holidays? The foreign junkets by 38 officials of Goa in the recent past has gained nothing for Goa in terms of cleanliness. You see stinking garbage piles everywhere, in the cities and by lanes and no segregated garbage bins are provided in strategic locations for people to deposit the waste. The frontage of most shops and super markets is full of litter and the civic body is utterly powerless in imposing fines on the establishments.
Though monsoons are long gone you still see uncut grass and weeds in the open gutters near Panjim market which traps mounds of garbage and nobody seems to bother. With such a small population if our beloved Goa cannot manage to keep its cities and villages clean, the future generations will never forgive us for our lack of civic sense, the destruction of the ecology and the annihilation of the golden goose that is tourism.
