Stem the Panjim Market rot
Though India has launched a campaign of good governance to cope with the unprecedented shift of people to the cities, which are the prime engines of the economy and generators of wealth, not a whimper of this campaign has been heard in Goa, raising the question whether the State government and the corporators and councillors across Goa are ignorant of the same.
Meeting after meeting of these urban local bodies are marked by allegations and counter allegations without any united effort to forge a vision for the next decade or two, for Panjim or any of the other towns, which are reeling under population influx, petty traders, the urban poor and beggars. Woefully inadequate infrastructure such as inadequate parking and illegal structures, occupation of footpaths and filthy markets, not to mention abysmal standards of hygiene are the order of the day.
Panjim, the 21st century capital of a so-called progressive State is an utter embarrassment if judged from the parameters of good urban governance and city planning. The population of the Panjim Urban Metropolitan Region is at 1,14,405 according to the 2011 Population Census. The Corporation of the City of Panaji has a Rs 39-crore budget, with additional revenue of Rs 2.4 cr from increased taxes and ~ some argue unnecessary ~ bloated army of 30 corporators. Even considering the party politics between the State government and the ruling CCP corporators in good times and in bad, the question citizens ask is why can they not have a city which is free of dirt, squalor, chaos and rampant corruption?
After what seemed like a lifetime, the South Goa Collector ND Agrawal submitted his inquiry report on the Corporation of the City of Panaji on one of the greatest obsessions of the urban body in recent times ~ the market scam. The laborious inquiry has revealed what any street-corner wag would have told us from the start ~ that the original allotees of the shops are not presently the actual occupiers. No surprises that there are photocopies of signatures of chief officers and the original files pertaining to granting of original possession given through the GSIDC have disappeared. Allegations are that the original allotees, mostly Goan vendors, on their own or in connivance with corporators, have sold these shops to non-Goan shopkeepers, themselves now claiming space in the central aisle of the market or squatting on either side of the main entrance to the market.
Public cynicism and disgust at the poor state of city governance by successive State governments and the CCP has reached such a pinnacle that citizens would not be shocked if the report collects dust and no action is taken against anyone, given those involved and their connections with the political class across parties. What happened to the CCP parking scam at the Santa Monica Jetty where a corporator himself was allegedly involved in illegally collecting parking fees is anyone’s guess. Apart from the illegal transfer of shops scam, which is only the tip of the iceberg of corruption, the CCP market is a showcase of graft. Most of the goods sold are duplicate and contraband, without any Indian Standards Institute quality mark. The weights and measures of a great many vendors are faulty and doctored to cheat buyers, is what shoppers complain of routinely. There are no checks on the rates charged leaving buyers at the mercy of vendors, is another major grouse of the citizenry. A majority of the fruits are forced-ripened by injecting artificial agents while broilers are injected with hormones, others have complained.
Even rotting fruit and fish is sold to customers at a “cheaper rate” on a daily basis. All this happens under the very noses of the CCP and the State government with its paraphernalia of departments such as Food and Drugs Administration, Weights and Measures and CCP’s own inspectors who turn a blind eye, one tends to assume at a price. The CCP, FDA and Weights and Measures have to perform their duties much, much more diligently if all of this is to be checked. Citizens too can play a role in complaining and complaining loudly. Inquiry reports such as the one pertaining to the CCP market scam alone cannot be game-changers in the effort to break the cycle of corruption, duplicity and fraud on the citizens. It is time to clean the market filth, literally and metaphorically.
