Just for a change the other day I thought I would take the ferry from Betim and cross over to Panjim. They are the same rickety ones that were plying a quarter of a century ago!
As I got out of the ferry and started walking along the ramp I saw written in big bold letters “Swachh Bharat, Swasth Goa”. I looked at the structure. It was built of bricks, the cheapest way of doing things and now with the rains the walls were acquiring a not so clean look. But look at the roof! Oh my God! It was laden with lots of garbage like some old plastic sheets, some grass growing on it and other items which gave it a real dirty look.
Then I looked around. The whole place including the area where a lot of vehicles were parked was littered with paper, plastic, twigs, leaves and dirt from the sea. The whole place looked not only dirty but filthy. Is Goa a tourist place?
I crossed the road with my heart in my mouth because there was no zebra crossing and even if there was one, it’s my experience that nobody would be respecting it. I have seen in other countries that along with the zebra crossing there is also a signal. When will that happen in our country? In another hundred or two hundred years?
I then tried to get on to the footpath. A lot of water had collected on the road! Where are the storm water drains? Or the gutters? How will the water move? Coming to storm water drains, in the villages most of the drains have been plastered with cement including the bottom without giving any slope to them. So the water neither seeps into the ground nor flows into some water body. Imbeciles!
Talking about the footpaths I noticed that they were of varying heights. At some places they are so high that steps have been built to get onto the footpath and at other places the footpath is lower than the height of the road so that it gets easily inundated during the rains with dirty muddy water, making it useless for the pedestrians. In other places the tiles have shifted or disappeared altogether; forget about the unevenness. Proof of the shoddy work that is usually done nowadays!
As I was walking I stepped on to one of those slabs they have placed over the drains and providentially escaped from hurting myself as one of the slabs went wobbly. The slabs have been placed in some places most haphazardly. Some have been given a slope, others have been placed flat and others have been put in a crooked manner and still others are not firm at all. And what about those which have a crack in the middle? You feel frightened even to step on them lest they give way and you fall into the drain and injure your leg. Where is the quality in all this? Sorry! Some people probably have never heard of the word QUALITY.
Our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi had this noble idea of a clean India but instead of backing his idea with action we seem to have become used to dirty living and dirty life. Panjim was anytime better than Panaji. Perhaps the authorities have only started “imagining” a clean Panaji. I wonder how many more years it will take to make it a reality.
