The Herald Central Office and I are in Panjim and hence we are both obliged to give our attention to the salubrious and holistic development of the ambience of our capital city – surely not at the cost of the overall development of Mother Goa that sustains us all in our own niches. Today we know that a healthy body exits best in a healthy mind and that healthy individuals breed a healthy society full of prosperity and happiness as crime and discord is reduced.
It is important that we together vote for a leader who delivers promises and not those who ensure that their own vested interests are served at the cost of the public exchequer. We have to look straight now that the elections are announced and not wail and bail off those who do party jumping in their own personal selfish interest and that too in the garb of public interest and development.
For over 25 years, Panjim has seen development on paper alone. Dr Nandkumar Kamat, Patricia Pinto and myself have been shouting hoarse about the lack of attention to the holistic and sustainable development of Panjim, the capital city which is degrading and deteriorating with each passing year.
As steering committee member of the JNNURM mission allocated to Panjim under the central capital cities upgradation plans under both the Congress as well as the BJP governments in Goa as well as at the Centre, we experts in the monitoring schemes of the government could achieve nothing but scam ridden spending or sending back of the central funds earmarked for the development of Panjim as a Smart City.
It is a matter of disgrace to us all Goans at large and to residents of Panjim that the city today is only rich in scams. The politicians in power have betrayed us and to lighten up and refresh memory of our people, I just would give a few instances upfront for the voters as well as the readers of the Voice of Goa. The Garcia de Orta and all the gardens in Panjim, which ought to be the lungs of the city, are decaying with garbage all around and pests, particularly rodents, dogs and fleas.
The election promises of removing the casinos from River Mandovi are a stab on the residents of Panjim as drugs, illegal parking and brawls at midnight is a daily routine denying sleep to the residents. The added nail to the coffin of woes of the capital city is the fact that we don’t see a sense of urgency and uneasiness among the so called educated and highly conscientious residents of Panjim that ‘environment protection always begins with me’.
I have a petition against the Government of Goa, the Captain of Ports and eight other government agencies that are destroying the capital city and Mandovi River by building a three-floor terminal building 60 metres into River Mandovi with biodiversity destroying concrete piers.
But alas! Panjimites gleefully enjoy the casino menace, the festers of the parks and gardens, parking woes, mounds of garbage strewn all around the city, erratic water and electricity supply. Thanks to COVID-19, the virus has had its positive impacts on Goa and Goans. I have dealt with the negative impacts in the series of articles in this paper in the past.
As regards to the RNA virus, it is still mutating and infecting our population in waves which coincides with the waves of tourist inflow and labour force invited into Goa by industrial estates, fisheries and vending agencies too. As a scientist working on various projects concerning marine pollution, I had exposed the ills of marine pollution due to increased load of organic matter, eutrophication and fish morbidity and mortality due to sewage, organic leachates and heavy metal and chemical poisoning (paints, pesticides, oil spills, etc.).
The positive aspect of the COVID pandemic is the fact that as the people were locked down indoor due to standard operating processes, there was no disturbances into our river ecosystems, particularly in River Chapora in Bardez. Today, those of us from Bardez are seeing large number of clams (tisreos), Oysters (calvams), Mussels (shinaneos) mushrooming in the relatively clean River Chapora, as industries commerce and cruises are absent right from the Morjim/Chapora bay up to Tar/Guddem in the Siolim constituency.
Goa University, NIO, Fisheries scientists from Goa as well as from the Central agencies working in Goa must wake up to this reality. If we desire to make Panjim safe for its residents and clean for the tourists visiting us, we have to focus on the person whom we are going to vote for the next five years. Sadly, Panjimites, as history shows us, have been cheated lock, stock and barrel by our leaders. Look at our St Inez creek. This creek is not just to equilibrate tidal waters of River Mandovi but is a bountiful breeding ground for fish biodiversity and ecosystem rejuvenation, but sadly, the MLA of Panjim then had to be corrected and firmly told at a meeting of Goa State Pollution Control Board that St Inez water is not a nullah of the sewage treatment plant at Tonca. Sadly, we must also realise that the width of the creek was reduced by over 65 per cent by the real estate lobby.
The residents of Panjim have missed the bus far too often and have to be blamed squarely for the sorry state of Panjim and the increased morbidity and amongst the residents not only from lifestyle diseases due to increased incidences of heart attacks, pulmonary ailments including TB, but also kidney and pancreatic metastasis.
Finally, I would like to conclude that it is time for us to assess the technical, scientific and the compassionate background of the persons who are vying for the post of MLA of Panjim as our very lives in the once salubrious city as sought to be thrown into their hands. May better sense prevail and let us not vote for Mr. Wrong.
(The writer is a retired University Professor and an Environmental Activist)
