Chain reaction hits Sea Link
Launched with so much fanfare, it has been unceremoniously shot down like a clay pigeon. Not at all surprisingly, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat’s ‘dream project’, the Vasco-Dona Paula Sea Link, has not found favour with the National Highway’s Authority of India (NHAI). The central body has correctly prognosticated that the grandiose project to connect Panjim and Vasco will only turn out to be another white elephant.
A meeting was held recently, attended by NHAI Chairman Brijeshwar Singh and an NHAI General Manager, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat, Chief Secretary Sanjay Srivastava and PWD Minister Churchill Alemao, where the NHAI delivered the coup de grace on the project, saying there was insufficient traffic to justify investing such a huge amount.
Instead, the NHAI officials suggested, the Goa government should opt for solutions successfully deployed by countries like Malaysia, Singapore and others, like roll-on, roll-off (RoRo) ferries for vehicles and, if necessary, hop-in, hop-out speedboats for passengers. These vessels can transport vehicles and commuters from one end to another quickly and efficiently. This will be a much cheaper option that will not have any major environment impact, the NHAI said.
If all of this sounds familiar, it is because these are the very same arguments made in these columns over a year ago, after the Chief Minister announced this quixotic project during the 2009 budget. Except for a few maverick self-styled experts, it has drawn universal condemnation from anyone with even a modicum of commonsense.
Why would any sensible person say to spending Rs2,400 crore to build a bridge from somewhere near the San Jacinto Island to the village of Siridao, near Agassaim? With that much money, the state government could build every other bridge that is on the drawing board in the state, including the parallel six-lane Zuari bridge, the bridges over the Talpona and Galgibag rivers to straighten out National Highway 17 at Goa’s southern border, bridges to the riverine islands of Chorao and Divar, and many smaller bridges.
Alternatively, it could build a railway track from Majorda to Pernem, including railway bridges across the Zuari and Mandovi Rivers, so that local commuter trains can be operated between Margao and Mapusa, to ease congestion on NH17. This would not only make commuting within Goa a pleasure, it would also make widening the highway unnecessary, saving a lot of houses from demolition.
But this government suffers from an edifice complex. It thinks big is beautiful, because massive expenditures provide for even more massive kickbacks. That is why it hurried to make a provision of a huge Rs100 crore (an amount that, in itself, is enough to build two bridges) in this budget for ‘consultants’ to prepare a feasibility report, even before the NHAI could give its say on the project. Now, that Mr Kamat & Co have got a (no) feasibility report from the NHAI, for free, are they still going to give those so-called consultants their big bucks?
Missing voters first!
According to its own information, there are at most about 1,500 or so people who have taken Portuguese citizenship, but are still living in Goa. So why is the Election Commission (EC) so concerned about getting these people off the electoral rolls? Can such small numbers scattered across several constituencies seriously distort the poll results?
Instead, the EC should first turn its attention to the thousands of people who complain every time there is an election that their names went mysteriously missing from the electoral rolls, and they could not exercise their franchise. It is a travesty of democracy that people who want to vote are denied this basic right. Before it tries to exclude alleged foreigners, let the EC look at including genuine citizens who fall through the cracks in its system.
