We are talking of green initiative in buildings in Goa particularly in Panjim and plotting the city’s bio-diversity. One cannot fathom all this, since for Panjim, the most important green initiative that should have been taken years ago for which activists have been shouting themselves hoarse, is the cleaning of the St Inez creek. This has been hanging fire with no conclusion in sight. The creek is called a nullah, now true to its existing condition of being a repository of garbage and looks like it will remain that way for some time to come. The St Inez creek was the single-most important biodiversity resource for Panjim, which is today in a coma and will be in a RIP state not too far away in the future. The garbage problem of Panjim has been handled by dumping the huge amount of solid waste on a rotational basis around the city for many years now. There is no solution in sight for that with Bainguinim plant going into cold storage because of lapse of funds sanctioned. The traffic in Panjim is gridlocked at almost all times of the work day, leading to increased vehicular emissions. Thus, instead of talking of green initiatives and all that now, which essentially is deluding oneself or are in the nature of feel-good initiatives, the thing to do is to get your basics right. De-congest the city, implement pay-parking, get the multi-storeyed car parking done as soon as possible, make some streets pedestrians only and commission the hop on – hop-off bus service inside the city. This will get the traffic moving and drastically improve the air quality in Panjim. Freeze all construction in the heart of the city where multi-storeyed buildings are coming up, which by themselves lead to more congestion and pressure on parking space and are disastrous in the event of calamities like fire etc. Implement support for heritage structures and convert the centre of the city into a heritage precinct and pedestrian zone only. Unless all this is done, there is no point of talking green initiatives and restoring bio-diversity. Then in a recently inaugurated government building in Porvorim – the Deendayal Upadhyaya Bhawan that will house the Department of Planning and Statistics, we have climate control features installed as reported in the media. Where we cannot maintain traffic signals in the capital city, which is the lowest form of technology and the most common feature for any city we are talking of newfangled gadgetry and that too in a government building. The same thing is true for CCTVs installed in police stations, which have been non-functional for years now. Our problem is not installing the state-of-the-art gadgetry, but to keep it working to desired performance parameters. Unless there is no support structure set up to regularly service and maintain the equipment; there is no point in installing them in the first place. Or like smoke detectors, whatever is installed, will get stolen like at one place in Margao and two places in Panjim recently. At least we can save some money by thinking simple and installing things that those occupying the building understand and can keep them working.
