The government will once again face the challenge of seriously violating the environment during the construction phase of the third Mandovi bridge, with the National Green Tribunal accepting the application of the Goa Foundation, that the project will cause the destruction of mangroves. But there are more alarming reports emanating that the Environmental Impact Assessment Report for the bridge was commissioned and conducted by an agency in Mumbai which has prepared a hurried “table report”, while the GSIDC’s original application for an EIA to be conducted by the National Institute of Oceanography, is pending.
While this will – as all decisions of this nature taken by the Goa government now are – will be played out in court. But this further underscores the manner in which the government is rampantly going ahead with commissioning huge projects which violate environmental laws, displace people and deprive them of their land without adequate compensation and consent.
The Mandovi bridge construction project however may throw up serious issues beyond environment. There needs to be a thorough financial audit so that the people of Goa know how this bridge, which was supposed to have been funded by the Centre, has become a financial albatross for the state. After the Centre refused to fund the project, former Chief Minister Parrikar went to the NABARD, the apex bank for agriculture credit to get this infrastructure loan. NABARD has sanctioned a massive Rs 460-crore loan which is 90% of the Rs 514 crore project cost of the Mandovi bridge.
What is also significant is that the same BJP government of Goa has gone to the same bank which gives loans for agriculture credit and secured a loan of Rs 74.3 crores for the Keri bridge in Tiracol, which is meant for the sole purpose of Leading Hotels, the project proponents the controversial, anti people and anti-environment Tiracol golf course and villa project.
While the Tiracol and Mandovi projects may be poles apart in their very nature, the former being a private project with government backing and the latter a government project on a massive loan which will be recovered from the taxes we pay, the principle underlying both are the same. The lack of people’s participation, the belief that consent of stakeholders before projects are cleared are an irritation that should be done away with, and the assurance given to project proponents, including semi government organisations like the GSIDC, that environmental violations will be “taken care of”.
This is the template which this government is dutifully following with the discipline of a monk. And as people’s protests rise in various parts of Goa, the government justifies its blatant anti-people model of development on the ground that investments have to be protected. The government sees no conflict between protecting investments and destroying the very land for which these investments are being purportedly made. It doesn’t need to ask itself or tell the people of Goa why so much of public money should be spent in repaying massive loans for a bridge which was supposed to be funded by the centre and why another bridge in Keri is being built for the private well being of Leading Hotels, under the garb of improving village connectivity. It is strange that the government’s heart supposedly beats for the villagers of Tiracol exactly at the time when a massive golf course and villa project is coming up in the Chief Minister’s constituency.
No one is fooled though. But everyone, except the government, is disgusted.
