Sound Advice
Governor Bharat Vir Wanchoo’s address to Goa’s business class over the weekend stood out for a couple of reasons: One, the governor chose to steer away from the backslapping bonhomie that usually mark such occasions that are laced with speeches full of rhetoric and hyperbole. Two, Wanchoo, from the content and tenor of his comments obviously took the time and effort to take a close look at the problems that continue to beset industry, development and growth in Goa. The governor was addressing the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s annual general body, and no doubt, the hall had a large sprinkling of industrialists who have made their fortunes from the export of iron ore. The GCCI is currently headed by a mineowner. The governor’s advice to the ore exporters was, look at the present shutdown of the mining industry not as a problem, but an opportunity to explore other avenues of business and industry that could help pull Goa out of the current economic impasse. More significantly, the titular head of State spoke of the need for “ethics” in business and the importance of inclusive growth.
As this newspaper recently reported, Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar recently made a case with the Planning Commission and the Union Finance Ministry for a grant of Rs 3,000 crore to help the State cope with the burden of the monthly dole the government is dispensing to the “mining affected”. This size of one-time grant constitutes 65 per cent of the Rs 4715 cr plan outlay for the entire State this year. Is such a demand from Central or State coffers justifiable? What the chief minister ought to have done instead, was to create a relief fund for the “mining dependent” with contributions from those who made enormous profits from mining, and who are responsible both for those they employed in the industry and for the mess that was created to maximise profits.
It’s not often that the governor of a State is willing to say things as they are, rather than just making innocuous, clichéd remarks that either bore an audience or quite simply whiz past the ears of jaded listeners. Wanchoo didn’t restrict himself to subtly pulling up the mining barons alone. Goa’s natural resources were being overexploited with construction, development and tourism, and it’s much touted IT industry was practically in the doldrums, he said.
Quite apart from the mining industry whose aggressive and muscle flexing business module has pushed Goa into the league of the Bellary barons, a member who headed the GCCI in the past has been under a cloud for cornering prime industrial property by sitting on the board of the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC). While Congress MLA Babu Kavlekar who headed the GIDC for some years is now being investigated by the authorities for allegedly siphoning off huge payoffs and converting these into lucrative land holdings in faroff Kerala, the former head of the business chamber has quietly escaped scrutiny quite simply because he is well-connected, whether it is the Congress or the BJP that holds the reins of power.
The governor is perhaps one of the few people in government to openly say what to the public in Goa is clearly apparent: that the overkill in the tourism industry could well end up destroying its most basic natural assets. Does Goa have the carrying capacity to sustain the burgeoning numbers that want to holiday here season after season? Year after year we have seen the numbers scaling up with neither the infrastructure to match, nor a definitive policy to regulate growth. The numbers are no doubt impressive on paper and for the hotels, guest-houses, shacks cropping up any which way. Yet, the government is nowhere close to solving the most basic of requirements. Garbage management.
