SATURDAY, MAY 04, 2024
Sujay Gupta
2020 has gone down as the year of pandemonium. And in Goa, the real pandemic lay in the inability of the government to communicate clearly on many fronts across a period of time. But there is a grey area that lies within the inability to communicate and the deliberate strategy to garble communication bordering on untruths. One is reminded of the stellar masterpiece of Gabriel Garcia Marquez “The Autumn of the Patriarch”, on the life of a Latin American dictator, obsessed with prolonging his rule.
In this novel, the Latin ruler even sells off the sea to repay the national debt. In the Goa of today our seas, our hinterland waterways, our land in our villages, our heritage structures are not quite secure as the march of skewed development consumes them all. One is not drawing parallels with the present day reality except to recount these lines (in reference to the Latin ruler) who discovers that “ in the course of his accountable years, a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting that truth”.
Isn’t it, therefore, pertinent to ask, in the light of what we shall recount now, whether the manner of communication- which is nothing short of miscommunication- on many issues of people’s concern was deliberate, because the truth is neither palatable to speak or digest.
The people's agitation against double-tracking and coal transportation will obviously dominate this discussion because it was by far the single biggest face-off between the government and the people in 2020 and has spilled over to 2021. Therefore the litany of misleading communication was heard more often when this issue raged. It was used by the government to try an wriggle out of a tight spot when people asked tough questions. Let’s recount some of them
1 Power and Environment Minister Nilesh Cabral said “There is no intention of the government to increase the coal-handling capacity. The rail double-tracking is required to run more trains. It has nothing to do with coal- handling".
The reality is that the rail double tracking was intrinsic to the MPTs expansion plans, which would enable them to handle more coal.
The Deputy Chairman of the MPT Guruprasad Rai, in a letter to Bhushan Kumar , Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Ports and Shipping listed four projects that the MPT proposed to be dropped from the Port Master Plan. The third project in the list was the construction of the "Outer Harbour and Coal Terminal"
One of the two reasons mentioned for the dropping of the project is significant. It stated “Dependence on railway doubling which is much delayed”
Surely an official communication from MPT outlines a clear connect between railway doubling (track doubling) and coal handling and transportation-related projects i.e Outer Harbour and Coal Terminal.
2 Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, while speaking during an interaction with children who asked him to stop coal import because of pollution in localities around the port and railway line, said “I assure you coal import and handling will drop by 50 per cent. We will reduce coal and are in the process of stopping it as soon as possible. We cannot stop it altogether. Industries are on (have been running) for 40 years”. he said.
The question is can the Goa Chief Minister independently ensure this? The MPT is within its rights to expand its business and gets its orders or guidance from the centre. The state’s limited role here is having a say in Pollution Control board permissions for coal handling. And recent developments have actually indicated how the Pollution Control Board of Goa, far from acting as an independent watchdog, has bent over backwards to facilitate MPT's coal handling, if the minutes of MPT Board of Trustees held on April 21, 2020, is any indication.
The minutes disclosed that the GSPCB’s decision to reinstate the Consent to Operate, cargo quantities of the two coal handling companies at MPT happened at “the initiative of the Union Minister of Shipping”. This was mentioned by none other than the Chairman of MOT at the meeting whose minutes are available.
Let’s absorb this. The MPT Chairman, in a meeting of his Board of Trustees mentioned that the Union Minister of Shipping had intervened to reinstate the consent to operate given by the Goa Pollution Control Board to two coal companies to handle coal cargo. The GSPCB had initially rejected the application for reinstatement but in its very next meeting on February 28, the reinstatement application was granted. We are now aware how that may have happened.
Moreover, the Sagarmala documents clearly show how 137 Million Tonnes per Annum of coal is planned to be transported through MPT and through roads and villages.
In light of this, does one get any confidence that the government of Goa will indeed have the gumption to keep coal handling in check? It is more likely to succumb to the centre’s pressure and obey dictates.
From the time the Chief Minister Sawant spoke of inspection along the railway tracks at Cansaulim in the hope that people would buy this a serious intent by the government to bat for the people of Goa, to the promises of mining resumption to assuring the people that the government was on top of the Mhadei battle with Karnataka, there has been a reality deficit.
This has extended to a general trust deficit which emanates from the inability of the government to come clear on issues. In this case, the truth will hurt people. The irony though is that the people of Goa see through this. And NGOs fighting these issues are armed with officials documents and information which the government doesn’t make public.
All it takes is transparency. But to do that, you need to not just communicate the truth but have the ability to defend your decisions when are unpalatable to the public.
