Dr Sanjay Dessai originally hails from Tilamol-Quepem and his daily commute to Margao for work involved getting stuck in mining traffic for long hours, that too with his little children in the car. It was then, way back in the year 2006-2007, that Sanjay got vocal about local issues especially a demand for organized mining and would highlight them in the media and make his friends aware of the various issues around him.
“I pay taxes through income tax, VAT and service tax. Almost 30% of my income goes into taxes. So I feel the government is directly accountable to me, with what they do with my money paid in taxes and hence they have to provide me with the best infrastructure,” explains Sanjay.
Looking at everything in this perspective, Sanjay equipped himself with a good quality Apple phone and started a Facebook group, namely ‘Movement against Potholes for Safety of Life’ and on a daily basis would post pictures of bad roads within Margao or roads that he came across on his commute to Quepem-Curchorem.
Unlike others who troll the internet, flood pages with photos and comments criticizing the government, Sanjay goes a step further of always making an official complaint with the PWD about the bad road and closes the complaint only after the stretch is patched or fixed.
“By going through the proper channel, writing to the PWD, following up with a complaint with PWD engineers and sending them photographic evidence of the bad road, many a times I have achieved success in fixing a bad stretch. Simply criticizing doesn’t help,” explains Sanjay.
With a large online community on his two groups, firstly ‘Movement against Potholes for Safety of Life’ and ‘We demand Organised mining’ which shows and exposes the truckers and the traffic jams in Curchorem, Sanjay has a fan following of over 6,000 people on both his groups and also urges others to update photos which he officially follows up on.
“In 2007, when Sudin Dhavlikar was PWD, Roads and Transport Minister, I officially wrote to him, demanding names and contact numbers of all the engineers in the PWD, so I could make official complaints and follow up on bad roads. He never replies to me. I personally went and got the details and I ensure I speak to the engineer. I am not fighting for a PWD helpline for roads and an internal audit of all roads built,” asserted Sanjay who believes in social activism, actions should speak louder than words and not just protests and stray talk on Facebook.
A true online activist who follows up on official complaints, Sanjay after speaking sets out into Margao to get pictures of potholes of the recently laid roads after the sewerage works have been completed, as he wants to add it to his photos of hundreds of bad roads in Salcete, he’ll then upload them from the spot, get people to share his post and also hear their feedback and then immediately file an official complaint on the bad roads.
So much so that he once received a letter from the authorities asking him to identify the stretch and meet the engineer and the road was fixed in a short duration. Now many years later, this is a usual practice for Sanjay who wants to stay apolitical and fight for Goans to have better roads.
