I was recently invited to attend the oath ceremony for Swachh Bharat – Nitol Mission at Mala on September 17 on the occasion of the birthday of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which was also observed as Seva Diwas, in service of our nation.
I am a resident of Mala-Portais and could not attend the ceremony due to prior commitments, but managed to pay a visit in the evening to see what was done and to get an update from my friends, who are residents of Mala.
My friends informed me that the assignment was to inaugurate the new fancy tiling work and steps constructed near the Goa Urban Bank premises. The Swachh Panjim mission probably was a pretext to get these steps inaugurated.
The Swachh Bharat cleanliness work should have been celebrated by cleaning some other locations at Mala, where garbage is piled up and not this area where there is hardly any garbage to be seen.
In fact, the little garbage cleared that was cleared in this area was dumped behind Mushtifund School in a by-lane close to the inaugural place. Also, when I climbed the nice and clean and looked around, I saw the rooftops of huts looking quite shabby and the area was badly kept.
So even if the event was merely for show, Swachh Bharat was hardly done here. In this context I would like to mention that Fonte Phoenix (fountain) at Mala lies in a dilapidated condition for many years and work does not seem to be progressing, as the ex-Councilor Menino D’Cruz did not take any interest. Unfortunately, neither has the ex-MLA of Panjim Sidharth Kuncalienkar done anything about it and is only bothered to see the Boca de Vaca fountain near his residence well maintained.
Modiji’s birthday could have been celebrated in a better way and not in this area with the fake display of Swachh Bharat with a board fixed at the first climbing steps as ‘Initiative Amrut Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.’
Let’s hope we can inspire ourselves to do something better and take this initiative of Swachh Bharat to greater heights by actually trying to do something rather than just tom-tom about the work that should have been done and not what was actually done for mere publicity!
