The quote resembles the attitude of Goans, especially the bureaucracy and the political class in the State. Water bodies, large and small, beaches, lakes, rivers, rivulets, creeks and even wells, not a single one of them today can be considered to be safe from pollutants.
Goans once boasted of a clean and replenished water table which provided for the villages and low-lying areas in the urban spaces of the State without having to be dependent on piped water from the government’s reservoirs. However, all that has changed and from wells, lakes, rivers to beaches, every water body is facing an existential crisis. Depleting water table has forced low lying villages to depend on ‘Har Ghar Nal’ which these days is without any ‘Jal’. While the minister concerned has assured the people that there’s enough water in the State reservoirs to sail through the summer, a delay in monsoon could lead to acute shortage of water supply for households. The people of Bengaluru are already experiencing a water crisis and Goa could be next.
A large chunk of the problem is associated with the rampant expansion of real estate. Multi-dwelling large-scale projects, which could accommodate the population of a whole village have been granted construction licences and these in turn extract ground water by borewells. While large hotels are often granted construction licences, the smaller units mostly mushroom illegally. Most of the hotels, in absence of a proper sewage treatment facility, release untreated water into the rivers or beaches. In the latest case, a Vagator local complained that a starred hotel located on the hill was polluting the beach by discharging sewage water into it.
Year after year, during the last decade the State government as well as Central government agencies have been warning of the pollution of the water bodies in Goa. In 2022, the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) stated that the State’s well-known beaches are turning toxic. It observed that major beaches – Miramar, Calangute, Morjim, Keri and Vagator in North and Mobor, Baina, Velsao and Galjibag in South are most polluted with high levels of faecal coliform. As for the rivers, the report stated, that the State’s major rivers – Mandovi, Zuari, Sal, Tiracol, Chapora and Sinquerim are highly polluted. Faecal coliform exceeds the permissible limit as per the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) classification. In addition, waters at a few of the above locations, at times, indicate non-compliance to the prescribed limits with respect to Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) or pH and hence, in general, water quality at these locations is not satisfactory.
Is the State government taking cognisance? If the authorities had taken cognisance then the state of the water bodies wouldn’t have been so pathetic. Panchayats and municipal councils turn a blind eye to the illegalities and as allegations surface, everything comes at a price. Marred in corruption, licences are issued and where there are no licences, illegalities continue under the protection of those who are entrusted to protect the land and execute the laws. Seldom action is initiated, unless the Courts intervene. This slow death of the State needs to stop and reversal measures must be expressly planned and executed to avoid a catastrophe.
As Mahatma Gandhi said, “The earth, the air, the land and the water are not an inheritance from our forefathers but on loan from our children. So we have to handover to them at least as it was handed over to us.”
