SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 2024
Alexandre Moniz Barbosa
The decision of the South Western Railway to defer the double tracking work at the Davorlim level crossing that had been scheduled for Sunday-Monday (November 8-9) night will be welcomed by the thousands of people who have been objecting to double tracking project. Though the railway authorities have said that this deferment of the scheduled work is due to operational constraints, it is a clear indication that the mass protest at Guirdolim level crossing last Sunday-Monday (November 1-2) night has led the railway authorities to rethink on the closure of the road for the work. This, however, is not any victory for the people. Just as last month the personal hearing on the land acquisition for the same project was temporarily called off due to people’s pressure, so too this is at best a temporary measure that merely gives the railway authorities time to re-plan their project schedule.
On the other hand, when compared with the railways, the State government didn’t show the same maturity and level-headedness that it should have and instead went ahead and filed a first information report (FIR) naming a few persons, and many unknown persons for staging a protest at the Guirdolim level crossing. Doubtless there was some infringement of the law at Guirdolim that night when thousands of persons gathered, but at the current point of time, this being a very sensitive issue, should an FIR have been filed? Don’t people have the right to protest over an issue if they feel aggrieved? It was an entirely peaceful protest that occurred night. There was sloganeering, but there was also music and song. There was no major law and order situation that night that warranted this FIR filed 48 hours after the incident occurred. Obviously this FIR was filed after much deliberation as otherwise it would have been filed immediately. But why instigate the people in the State who are registering their protest as they would do in a democracy? Following this, Goencho Ekvott has already warned that is the demands are not met, there will be a lakh of people at the next protest.
Goa is currently living through an unprecedented phase in its history. On the one hand the government, since March this year, has been battling a pandemic that it had under control for a couple of months, but that later went completely out of hand in the latter months as numbers increased and facilities were found to be inadequate. But, it is not only the pandemic that has enveloped the State, for as the authorities fight the spread of the COVID-19 virus, there are simultaneously a number of other battles that are taking place across the State, that have resulted in the people taking to the streets and the railway tracks on various issues. In the past decades, the State has endured a number of agitations and emerged unscathed from them, but never have there been so many projects at the same time that have come for ire from the people.
The projects in question cover almost the entire geographical area of the State. In the north is the Mopa airport that is under construction, and which is under question. In Sattari is the proposed IIT that the people of Shel-Melauli are opposing, but that Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant has resolutely insisted will come up in that village as the land belongs to the government. This, despite senior leaders from his own party stating in public that the government should reconsider the site for the IIT. From the western town of Vasco to the eastern border of Mollem there are people fighting the doubling of the South Western Railway track, the transportation of coal, the widening of the highway and the Tamnar power project. The protest have already made it to the national networks. Further south is the Betul port that was believed to have been shelved, but has been resurrected and along the coastal areas there is also the Major Ports Bill that casts a dark shadow.
A situation such as the one prevailing at the moment does not yield positive results and keeps the government occupied and focussing its energy on other matters. The government is battling too many issues at one time and giving itself little scope to deal with other matters of urgency. When it should have been focussing on controlling the pandemic and on giving Goa’s economy a major boost to emerge from the depth to which it plunged due to the lockdown imposed to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the government machinery is firefighting battles at a very different level. Last month the Chief Minister and his deputy met with several groups that have come together to fight the three projects that cut through the Mollem forests. It was a good start and the government should have built on this dialogue by sitting across the table from the protestors and addressing their grievances. This was an opportunity that has now gone waste, as the FIR makes it doubly difficult for the government to reach out to the people on the issues. What then is the government’s next step?
In Melauli the government, by remaining adamant on the site, has rubbed the people the wrong way. In the south by filing the FIR it has stoked the fires that were already burning instead of dousing them. This is not how an experienced and mature government works. A government that is responsive does not create problems for itelf but finds solutions to existing problems. What we are seeing in Goa is just the opposite and there requires to be a course correction. What are being discussed and opposed are all major projects and the people’s views have to be heard on them. Besides, what purpose does the panchayati raj that gives power to the people serve, if consultations with the stakeholders on such major projects are not going to be taken seriously? The State cannot be constantly under protests. Right now the people do not appear to be in the mood of going back on their demands. It remains with the government to make the peace offering. Can this happen before it gets too late for a raproachment?
