SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 2024
From the inundation of the Margao Municipal Council building’s entrance and the neighbouring business complexes to the newly laid out tar roads in Curchorem which caved in and flooded the market area, it was chaos unleashed. The electricity department has been undertaking regular power shutdowns to carry out maintenance but the power cables snapped, and trees collapsed on homes and vehicles in Mormugao, while the choked drains led to the flooding of houses and damaging property.
The government expects labourers to work in the worst emergency situation, but their safety is not given any priority. Workers engaged in the segregation of legacy waste inside the old waste treatment plant at Sonsoddo were in for a shock as rainwater began flowing inside the plant, raising serious safety concerns. Commuters at the Ponda bus stand have been suffering for months without a proper shed. The pre-monsoon showers have just exposed the lack of commitment by the authorities to not providing essential services and the safety of the citizens.
The BJP is at the helm of affairs in the State and claims to control 75 percent of the panchayats, but yet not a single panchayat can claim to have completed the pre-monsoon maintenance works and can assure its villagers that in the worst of conditions, the local self-governing body is prepared to deal with the situation. The same goes for the municipalities; not a single municipal council has efficiently taken efforts to relieve the towns and cities of choked storm water drains and the garbage strewn on the streets which ultimately makes its way into the gutters leading to roads getting inundated during the monsoon.
Let Goa not forget the Raia crusader, 72-year-old Pedro Antonio Gauncar, who died after falling into a clogged and overflowing stormwater drain along the highway between Pepsi Junction and Our Lady of Livramento Church in Arlem on July 5, last year. The septuagenarian lost his life as the Raia Village Panchayat did not pay heed to his letter explaining the dangers of the open stormwater drain and demanding desilting before the arrival of the monsoon.
In the meanwhile, the State aspiring to have a state-of-art medical infrastructure could not ensure that emergency number 108 is accessible during the most testing times. The 108 services were disrupted on Thursday morning as some BSNL fiber cables had been snapped, as a result of which breaking news messages began circulating on social media providing an alternative landline number.
The question that arises is that while the first strike of pre-monsoon showers didn’t hit Panjim, what would be the fate of the already torn apart, trenched and road-battered capital city if the predicted thunderstorm warning by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) turns out to be true?
IMD has forecasted a delay in the arrival of monsoon by at least four days, thus providing the government and its agencies another week to get prepared. Will the Chief Minister, who ensured the best of renovation for his ministers with a ‘Mantralaya’, ensure that Goans who provided him another mandate to govern the State will be safe and not suffer at the strike of the first monsoon showers?
O Heraldo has been consistently focusing on shoddy development works across Goa, especially in Panjim. Well, with the works to continue even during the monsoon, will the citizens bear the brunt of the government’s failures or will immediate course correction ensue?
