He blamed them squarely for failing to fulfil the basic needs of the common man in the State which are toilets, electricity and water. Ironically, Goa was the last State in the country last year to be declared as Open Defecation Free and this year was the first State to be declared as 100 per cent ‘Har ghar jal’. Is this an admission of the government, made by none other than the Chief Minister himself, that Goa has not achieved either? There has been tremendous criticism to the declaration of Goa achieving tap connections in every household. Herald itself scoured the rural areas to find many houses that did not receive potable piped water. And toilets, they are still being built in places.
Other than that, the Chief Minister was clear that the harassment of the common man has to stop. His statement that outsiders get their work done easily but Goans have to ‘toil’ for their works is a telling commentary on his own administration. Here is a Chief Minister who is announcing that the people of his State have to ‘toil’ for any task with a government department, but outsiders have it easy. What is he, as head of government, doing about this? Goans don’t need to be told what they already know, they need solutions to these issues. They need to have the vast army of government servants to be working for them, and not for the outsiders, as admitted by the Chief Minister. He has said it, now will Sawant make the changes required to get the staff to pay heed to the local Goan and not harass the Goan when he or she visits a government office?
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The Chief Minister did not stop there, but slammed government officials for dereliction of duty, stating that there are staffers who do not come to the office and that the heads of departments don’t even bother to question their absence. This again is not an entirely new revelation, but then what action is being taken in these cases? Apparently there are many, as the Chief Minister spoke in the plural when he said this. So, will the employees that are not coming to the office be asked for an explanation and action taken? Will the department heads be also held accountable for this as they too are complicit for not questioning the staff? It is not enough to merely make statements and then not act on them. Since there is such dereliction of duty on the part of the government servants, some action has to be taken so that this is not repeated.
This, however, is not the first time that this government has pointed out to staff not working seriously. Last year on two occasions the Chief Minister had broached the subject. At one time he had said that 20 per cent of the government staff does not work and at another time had told them to be punctual or face action. Those statements apparently have not brought about any change in the manner in which the government servants have been working. Why then will anything change now? What is required is action, and it has to come quickly as Goa needs to see positive change in the working of the government staff. Can you now blame the common man when he rages of how he is made to run around in government departments by the staff? It is time to move from statements to action if the Chief Minister wants to bring any change in the working of the government servants.
