The Goa government seems to have pilfered from a concept prevalent in the food and entertainment industry, a concept known as a “soft launch”. The term normally denotes an inauguration of a restaurant or hotel or a club prior to the formal launch. The soft launch is an occasion to invite select friends or members of the industry to sample the absolutely ready place and review it as a precursor to the formal public launch.
Organisations of the Goa government, including urban bodies have, of late, used its own version of a soft launch, to hide hard failures. The failure to complete two crucial projects on deadline, the pay parking for Panjim and the inauguration of the multi-level parking were sought to be swept under the carpet of a “soft launch”. An absolute farce of the launch of the much awaited pay parking was launched on May 2. The Panjim Mayor announced this at a press conference on April 26. Come May 2 and the CCP realised that the Commissioner had not even issued a work order to the agency supposed to collect the pay parking amounts from vehicle owners.
There has been complete non-execution of the pay parking plan since other crucial aspects of implementation haven’t even been thought of. A data base of owners of buildings in pay parking areas has not been compiled for the issuance of permanent parking passes for one vehicle per household. There is no clarity on what will be the fate of long term tenants, in the parking areas. To make matters worse a joke was played out, when the pay parking had a “soft launch” with the Mayor and a few officials posed for pictures holding what seemed like parking ticket receipt books. A week has passed and no one has paid for parking their cars anywhere in Panjim.
The multi-level parking launch also has gone the same way. This seems like another white elephant in the making, this time a creation of the tourism department. Last week there was an “inspection” during which many taxis were asked to come and fill up the spaces. The soft launch was scheduled on Monday (May 9). We later learnt that the date was picked because this was the Tourism Ministers birthday. Firstly, the need to inaugurate projects on dates personally relevant to ministers is irrelevant to the people of Goa. A project has to be launched on the given day as per deadline. But, when deadlines are not met, then any day important to ministers is picked and a “soft launch” announced. Does the Minister even know that the multi-level parking at the Panjim jetty was announced to decongest Panjim? And to do that feeder bus services were supposed to be launched simultaneously with the multi-level parking. There is not even a murmur of that service even having been planned, even as the “launch” was announced. But this time the soft launch too failed, not because the Tourism Minister changed his birthday but actually because the Defence Minister was not free to come and inaugurate it, according to some officials. Now the presence of the Defence Minister to inaugurate a parking lot in Panjim may be a matter of convenient choice but at the rate at which Manohar Parrikar is inaugurating bridges, culverts and fish stalls, the Government of Goa may as well make his presence mandatory in a new Inauguration Policy which can be notified.
We have all been taken for a ride and short changed. The joke is completely on us. We are expected to and some us of believe that Panjim now has pay parking and multi level parking in place. Both are myths till they are actually of service with all peripheral but crucial issues taken care of.
