On the other hand, the chief executive of the State, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has alleged that garbage management in Goa is marred by corruption and has charged that elected representatives of local bodies are siphoning off money by manipulating the 14th and 15th Finance Commission funds. Waste management was turned into a ministry and going by the allegations of the CM, one may well conclude that the garbage ministry has turned out to be a lucrative one.
A glance at the nine months of the second innings of Sawant at the helm of affairs and his government, paints a dark mosaic of problems and issues that the State has been facing with some glitters of the government’s attempts to sprinkle good days by hosting events every now and then.
As acknowledged by the CM, the garbage menace across the State has only become murkier and no urban or rural local body can claim or showcase a successful plan of keeping their area clean. Sonsoddo has become a buzz word for garbage dumps, and from the media to the lay man, every garbage dumping site or black spot is referred to as the ‘Sonsoddo in the making’.
The law and order situation has taken a hit, and going by the crime rate, it is difficult to predict the impact on the businesses especially tourism, despite the number of times one may want to boast about the high percentage of crime detection.
Traffic snarls and fatal accidents on the roads have become a common affair with very little or no effort. Police may want to refute that by pointing at the traffic signals installed or patrolling that has been enhanced. However, sadly, most of the traffic signals do not function except the ones on the national highways. Police recently installed AI CCTVs around Panjim and Porvorim, but what’s the point in having them when the traffic signals don’t function.
The engineering of the roads is yet to be streamlined across the State – right from the national highways to the interior roads used daily by motorists and pedestrians. Just to point out, the speed limit before the rumblers after the GMC on the NH, on the way to Panjim, is 60 kmph and after the rumblers is 40 kmph, with no signboard indicating rumblers ahead, which has led to several accidents on the slope which is also a converging point for traffic from Santa Cruz.
Not to forget the failure to ensure that Mhadei water is not diverted and the taxi fiasco that has brought embarrassment to the State and the country.
While governance has taken a beating, the one thing that the State has excelled during the last year is politicking. The Sawant-led BJP’s simple majority government in March 2022, went on to a three-fourths majority in the Legislative Assembly by mid-September with the defection of eight Congress MLAs.
In August, BJP claimed that 75 per cent of the panchayats had been won by the party-backed candidates and that their panels were ruling in the rural local bodies.
Despite such chest thumping achievements, the state of affairs are shocking. With the absolute majority from Assembly to urban and rural local bodies, the government and governance should have become a role model.
The Chief Minister has to rework his priorities from being a party leader to a statesman. Goa’s present circumstances demand a statesman who rises above politicking and delivers the State from the pandemonium. He should hold the reigns with firmness and ensure that not just the economy, employment and issues such as taxi, garbage, etc, are addressed but also the citizens’ breath in a new lease of hope of ‘achche din’.
