We don’t quite know if the BJP government has noticed but we actually have about 17 months left before the next elections in Goa, give or take a couple. In effect, the Laxmikant Parsekar government really has about a year to fix a rash of issues which are hanging fire. Alarmingly it looks like this government may well end its five-year-term without addressing non-negotiable sensitive promises on which it got its mandate.
While during its early days, there was promise, which downsized to hope which further plummeted to hope against hope before now sinking to hopelessness.
Does the BJP have a fix, a plan or even a hope of addressing them? It doesn’t seem so because it is not even addressing them, preferring to go through the motions of day-to-day governance and hope for a miraculous push at the fag end of its term. The beauty of hope is that it doesn’t always seem to be real. But that formula, can’t really work for a government which came to power on a huge mandate of hope and has belied it in a manner seldom seen. Herald has consistently harped on how the Parrikar-Parsekar government has made a mockery of the Regional Plan and has actually done away with even planning to de-notify the flawed plan of 2021 and introducing a new one. The current plan has been lying in a comatose state for the past three years. This has been the biggest lie that the government has lived with and deserves to be punished for this alone. It is unfortunate that there is not enough people’s anger against the manner in which the previous Chief Minister has spoken untruths to mislead the people of Goa into believing that notwithstanding the delay, the development of each village would be in the hands of the people who would in fact vote for their village plan before it became a part of the compete Regional Plan.
The people of Goa have been betrayed in a manner so bad that they are numb with shock. A government they thought would make them participants in its future planning has actually hidden itself from the people of Goa on these issues.
Manohar Parrikar’s zero tolerance to corruption is a voice in very distant memory. Every investor or businessman, especially in parts of North Goa is tired of paying what is called a “facilitation tax”, a clever term for bribes to various levels of elected, selected and appointed political and government representatives.
The garbage issue has compounded with panchayat after panchayat buried under untreated garbage, dealing a severe blow to tourism too.
The way seems to be clear for the restart of mining, but the manner in which mining leases have been renewed, will not stand the test of legal scrutiny. Moreover the basic issue of illegality and lack of transparency in the mining sector has not been ensured for a system revamp. Meanwhile the state has misled the people of Goa by telling them that mining will start when dropping international ore prices and the high export duty of 30% per ton of ore sold, has made export of even one ton a losing proposition. Therefore, an out of work mining community which voted for the BJP in the hope that their livelihoods would be restored, look blankly at the mining belt MLAs, most from the BJP, who have no answers to give them.
The economic growth which was promised has been belied and the ambitious industrial policy envisaging Rs 25,000 crore of investments and 50,000 jobs depend on land and power, both of which seem to be in short supply with no idea from where the state is going to procure them.
The BJP, as it goes into the critical business end of its term has to look at its report card on the basis of its delivery on big ticket key issues. The smaller boxes may have been checked but the absolute non-negotiable big boxes of corruption free governance, a strong regional plan, law and order and economic growth are blank.
