There is a deeper worry, than just plain opposition to some of the so called investments that the Goa Chief Minister is backing in the name of development. His open pumping for the marina project in Sancoale backed by Yacht Heaven, a company owned by Umaji Chowgule and the controversial Golf Course and villa project of the Jatia- owned Leading Hotels, raises questions about the integrity of the government towards following the rule of law.
On the Sancoale marina project, Chief Minister Parsekar has at least said that the project will have to be cleared by the Pollution Control Board. So we shall hold judgment on this, though there is very strong evidence that the project is not environmentally sound. With the golf course and villa project of Leading Hotels at Tiracol, the situation is completely different. The Chief Minister has repeated this ad infinitum that the project proponents have all the permissions and licenses. Such a blanket carte blanche given by the Chief Executive of the state, makes two things possible. a) Authorities of the state start cutting corners and bend rules to clear vital files without scrutiny and b) Illegalities found in the process of clearances are regularised later. In order words, wrongs are covered later to make the past wrongs seem legal.
This project seems to be walking on a tightrope balancing legality and otherwise. The company can brandish papers to prove a façade of legality when the very fundamentals of the project from the manner in which land was bought from those who occupied, tilled and lived off it and the surrounding land bearing fruit trees, are flawed.
But the brazenness of the governments support causes companies such as these to go ahead and cross that line between legal and illegal knowing that the state would help out. As your newspaper has once again laid bare how Leading Hotels were barred from cutting trees on the night of May 14/15 when they entered the village of Tiracol in the dead of the night and terrorised villagers but they destroyed trees to make a path to their project site. What is shocking is that a team from the Forest Department carried out an inspection on May 16, when they saw the destruction themselves. Five days later, on May 20 the Forest department (according to the latest affidavit filed by Leading Hotels in the Bombay High Court) issued the first of the two permissions to cut trees, (their earlier permission issued in July 2014 had expired). The second permission, as we have reported, was granted on June 5, on World Environment Day.
The questions that the Forest Department of the Goa government needs to answer are
a) Why did they give permission to cut trees to a company, five days after they illegally felled trees?
b) Was this a professional decision or did the orders come from the very top in the government?
c) If it was a professional decision, where is the evidence that all due process and inspections were carried out under the Tree Act before permissions to cut trees were accorded.
The state, while welcoming investment cannot be seen as willing to bend and skirt rules to the extent that illegalities take place openly. This vitiates the industrial atmosphere. Mr Parsekar will realise to his own peril that it is not just activists and so called ‘negative” newspapers, which will hold him to account. Industrialists in Goa who have had to struggle, plead and even cut corners to get permissions to start their businesses, will loathe favours which are illegal being bandied out to some mega investors. Secondly, when word spreads that mega investors can “fix” it and get their projects rolling, a majority of foreign investors will start disrespecting the ethics and value systems which govern decisions taken by the government, in this case the Goa government.
Mr Parsekar, may not have the world vision to understand the equity of perceptions in the world of businesses. Once the Brand Equity of a state slumps, the euphoria of economic growth will become a whimper. Therefore this crony capitalism path will have a dead end soon.
