Akbar Khan
Recently we have seen a huge hue and cry towards a statue installation of Dr Jack de Sequeira, the son of soil who was the person behind safeguarding Goa’s identity as a separate state and building opinion across Goa not to merge with Maharashtra. Efforts are being made to get a better mileage from this issue too and benefiting self interest. Ever since then that man was forgotten for a long span of time and suddenly has risen, becoming the talk of town everywhere. All politicians want to claim that they are bhakts of Dr Jack and want to preserve the Goenkarponn.
Let us analyse after liberation what have we succeeded eventually in these nearly 50 years? Goa known for its exemplary beauty and considered as Swiss of Asia once, haven’t been the same. The best part of Goa was the never comparable beautiful scenic lush green areas with beautiful beaches spread across the long Arabian Sea. For this reason the Europeans marched towards Goa and made this colony of Europe. Looking at what we were famous for and what we are famous now, it makes huge difference in the way people have now been seeing Goa. Traditionally with scenic beach beauty, lush green outdoors, beautiful villages, awesome rivers and just fish and curry. The truthfulness of people, broadmindedness of Goans, helpful nature, caring, and not to forget susegad nature (non-interference). Live and give to live.
Now drastically this has changed with Goa deemed as a new industrial hub with loads of IDCS crawling in every part. Political interference to all policies and only agenda to garner vote all have added to the never ending race of power, position, and loot. There hasn’t been a master plan for Goa’s development. Every time a new leader comes in he is adamant to oppose what was done earlier and with new self plans to gain maximum during his term with these opportunistic politics all around.
No concrete plan as to what actually Goa needs and where had we started 100 years back. The very nature of Goa being a tourist destination, focussing mainly on natural beauty is forgotten. The quench for money has compelled policy makers to opt for plans which don’t suit Goa’s interests at all. Why does a small state of Goa need loads of Industries, which along with them gets in pollution, population, traffics, needs for bigger roads, Exploitation of natural resources and many more. Infact we can learn from Switzerland how they managed to conserve their original form with just tourism focussed and which was sufficient to generate funds for development too. Tourism was the main business for Goa but now mix up into mining, production, harbours, transportation etc.
If we had made long term plans to develop tourism in all expects specifically concentrating only to preserve the natural beauty and use this only as a tool for development as well as attracting people across world. Rather policy makers opted into exploit natural resources and making night life and alcohol source of attractions as a major tool which has now slowly drifting towards drugs and prostitution.
