The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, which goes by the acronym MoRTH, seems to have embarked on a project of Goa’s abject destruction. Decisions taken in meeting rooms in ministry blocks have no sync with the ground realities of Goa, both in terms of hard facts as well as appreciating Goa’s size and character.
Without any claim to special privileges, the MoRTH must know, and it clearly does not, that Goa’s essence lies in its village roads around which life, as it is lived in Goa, evolves ad revolves. Villages are connected through these road networks to each other and to larger towns. We already have 224 kilometres of National highways.
What the MoRTH, obviously trying to implement the “vision” of the Prime Minister, is looking at, is increasing road width exponentially, because wide roads equal development through the Prime Minister’s prism. But this prism is a top down one where it is believed that the centre knows best, and by bringing this form of ‘development’ to Goa, the centre is playing the role of benefactor and the state should therefore accept this with the gratitude of a ‘beneficiary’.
But Goa will not accept this as a beneficiary. How can we then accept this kind of development? We are not beneficiaries, we are tormented. If 229 additional kilometres of state highways and major district roads suddenly get converted to national highways with 30 metre expansions, cutting into homes, shops, tavernas and even religious structures, on what grounds are we supposed to accept it? Just because this is a part of the Prime Minister’s grand plan? Or because former PWD minister Sudin Dhavalikar supports it? Or because the state government feels that this will bring in funds?
Dhavalikar who is no minister now but fervently hopes to be in power, and even occupy the highest political chair in government post the elections, has said that those who lose their homes will be “rehabilitated” and new homes will be constructed. It is high time we see through this blatant lying. Has any rehabilitation process of any project been people friendly in Goa? And shouldn’t rehabilitation be built into the project plan and cost and announced along with the project? This is not Sudin Dhavalikar’s project? Therefore on what basis is this so called assurance of rehabilitating people, even fit to be taken into account?
Those who nonchalantly speak of rehabilitation, when it is actually a complete destruction of their lives and their futures, must also tell us who will pay for their rehabilitation and for how long. When people lose their businesses and their livelihoods and their businesses built over generations, who calculates this cost and pays for not just the immediate visible loss but the intangible loss? Do our politicians have the bandwith to even comprehend this?
Meanwhile, there is something called the spirit of local self governance enshrined in the 73rd and 74th amendment which has been ignored, flouted and insulted. The decision to undertake this massive conversion of state highways to national highways, is unjust, unfair and inhuman and it cannot have been taken without taking panchayats into confidence.
The new Goa government must put a stop to this. There is still the matter of approving the Detailed Project Report of this expansion project. The government should not approve it and take up the issue with the centre and explain to them, the damage this is going to cause Goa. It should also ask, why is the centre destroying Goa, under the pretext of fixing it?
