Bulldozing Anjuna
Rs 300 crore was the estimated cost of the new look Panjim achieved in 2004 when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar managed to get the International Film Festival of India permanently relocated to Goa. The figure apparently covered the costs of the Inox complex, the facelift to the Mandovi waterfront, the expansion of the riverfront road, the complete restoration of the old Goa Medical College structure and the overhaul of the interiors of the Kala Academy for film screening. There must have been other peripheral costs as well. The makeover served Panjim well because no new structures were imposed on the city, arguably the most beautiful in the country given its unique riverside and beachfront location.
Inox came to replace a clutch of ugly PWD hospital extensions. The frenetic rush to ready Panjim for the first film festival was not without its share of controversy. But Panjim was mercifully spared any major impositions of the sarkari development model.
That was then. Today, Tourism Minister Dilip Parulekar is currently in development overdrive mode, conjuring more and more outlandish plans for the tourism coast in North Goa. For Anjuna alone, Parulekar has in mind an investment framework of Rs 300 cr ~ what the State spent to get Panjim geared for the IFFI. Termed the Anjuna Beachside Development, the State government proposal is looking at structural facilities for an amphitheatre and party lawns, a Thai spa cottage, a watch tower, a botanical gardens and a mindboggling array of adventure sports like rock climbing, go-karting, archery… the list just goes on.
Sorry, but we’re rather confused here. Are we talking about a small, beautiful coastal village in Goa, or the underdeveloped regions of Maharashtra and Karnataka that have both the space and the need for these tourism “add-ons”? Just the fact that the government has unutilised land in Anjuna does not give it a right to start bombarding the area with a warped plan for its development which, as we all know, can often be a euphemism for kickbacks from hefty contracts.
Though the new development model for Panjim has the Mayor Surendra Furtado in a head-butting match with CCP commissioner Sanjit Rodrigues over the apparent repetition and duplication of plans for the capital, no one has been denied information. The Imagine Panjim proposal has been put up for public viewing at the old GMC for weeks. Rodrigues, also the CEO of the executing agency Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, has assured this newspaper that none of the major proposed changes ~ like the third bridge over the Mandovi ~ would be put in motion, unless endorsed by the citizens.
Let the State government adopt a similarly open and transparent procedure for the development of the Calangute-Anjuna coastal zone. But before getting to the stage of drawing up the plans, a public discussion on what type of manmade development should be allowed in these sensitive zones would be in order. It does not take an expert to see that the roads leading from Sinquerim to Anjuna or Saligao to Baga, whichever way one decides to travel to that part of the buzzing coast, are ill-equipped to shoulder the current load of traffic. A Saturday Night Market in full flow throws the Baga-Arpora or Mapusa-Arpora links off gear for hours. It is one thing to air-drop fanciful super-mall projects on a tiny village, but quite another to provide access to hordes of new visitors when road extension space simply does not exist.
Goa’s villages sprouted up hugging narrow bullock-cart lanes and the low houses jostled for proximity and security. The narrow roads in the villages may seem like an infernal nuisance to high-speed, fancy four-wheelers. But it is what gives these villages their unique character. Destroy that, and what’s the difference between Goa and Ratnagiri or Karwar?
