So by now we’ve all started to get used to another new normal, no more bars to have a drink with friends on a happy weekend drive, even for us who are not driving a vehicle (Its three months post the ban and one would wonder how many accidents have really reduced since April 1 when the ban came in place).
For the record, the use of mobile phones causes more accidents than drunk driving, so now will the authorities stop mobile networks on highways next? We are living in a forward moving world and with our mega cries of development, aren’t we only going backwards? When will we learn that a longer lasting formula is education and not inventing knee-jerk laws, being forcefully implemented. Millions of accidents are caused by simple lane cutting and if we can’t get our drivers to learn to drive in the correct lane, can we really get them to not drink and drive? Not to mention that the highway law will soon probably turn out to be another open tap of corruption running across the country. We can’t change a habit without changing the mind. Education on social responsibility is far more important than the Medium of Education we waste so much time and effort over.
The same goes with the 10 pm sound ban. We are strictly implementing a law enforced by the capital, which itself shows scant regard for the law on its own turf! Visit the national capital on any Mahurat (Wedding) day and one is forced to drive through a cacophony of blaring wedding music right through till well past midnight with total disregard of neighbors. Most functions don’t even start before 10 pm due to the traffic congestion in the capital on such days. Our CM has for the last three terms of the BJP, been mentioning of spearheading a separate sound policy for Goa, whose fabric is built on celebrations and tourism, but till date this all still remains on the drawing board and is only used as a silencer when the issue is hot and raised.
Even on a festival like the Easter weekend, we had a police force drive around actually stopping any music at all nightclubs / bars/ restaurants in a constituency as important for tourism like Anjuna / Vagator, forcing the tourists to venture further towards Morjim and Ashwem and participate in the rave parties that can afford to take care of the powers that be to stay open till late. It was only personal intervention of one of the new forward party leaders seeing sense, that venues were allowed to stay open post 10 pm on Easter Sunday, after making Easter Saturday a drab weekend for holiday makers.
Our country is vast and Goa is its smallest and if not most literate, definitely the most educated State and laws that are made for 1.3 billion people cannot be forcefully imposed on a minute population of 1.4 million. No, we are not talking regular percentages, but a leverage of 1/1000’s!
If the rest of the country is going to take decades to develop, does Goa have to also tag that line really? During elections, strong claims were made of the benefits of having the same govt. at the Center and State, the time is right now to see the benefit of this and ensure the State is governed by laws that suit the demographics of the State and not the millions of uneducated villages that determine most of the Central laws and dictates. Thankfully we have a CM, who has been making good efforts with the center to correct laws that don’t make sense locally and benefit the State’s all round development, with increasing involvement of the people.
If we so want to toe the national policies, we should first solve the taxi issue which will be soon celebrating its 25th anniversary of lack of freedom to travel and lack of any fair, fare system in the state. Thankfully the speed governing law has been done away with, which would have only made matters worse with drivers charging even more due to lower number of trips. It is time to permit an app based taxi service like the rest of the country and instill fair competition.
The tourism season is soon around the corner and this year with an all-new ministry and bureaucrats who will again stream through the ugly repeated processes of shack allotment, beach cleaning etc. Let’s hope that this year we can have systems in place before we are half way through the season, as was the case last year. Goa has been loosing out on its strongest international markets thanks to loose ended policies and refusal of the government to form a tourism board, that’s consistent through changing ministries, a format which has brought success to other states and most leading destinations globally.
And all this is no more just about tourism, it is about the economy and the very fabric of Goa. Do we really need our State which boasts of the country’s highest urban population ratio, to be driven by laws based on a population, majority of which live below the poverty line? What are our similarities with Madhya Pradesh to have a law that holds good in Goa?
With the new government’s mantra of development and change, the change starts here and now!
