There is a smaller emotive issue could be the tendency to concentrate the development efforts in Panaji, at the cost of developing other parts of Goa. Wherever you see the talk veers around to development of Goa or the projects like the IFFI come up, they are all diverted to Panaji. It is not enough to develop the capital alone, in fact people should understand Panaji is being developed at the cost of Goa. The amounts earmarked for the development of Panaji can be analysed to show up this fact. In a broader perspective, whenever there is talk of development of Goa, it centres around the 3 major towns of Panaji, Margao & Vasco and may be Mapusa but there is very little effort to develop other areas and provide facilities in these other areas. Compared to other States where there is dramatic polarization between the way of life in urban and rural areas, Goa has a unique and a common way of life throughout the State and you cannot really differentiate between a rural and an urban area here. Therefore development should be supportive of this social format and not create and accentuate a divide between the towns and the villages of Goa which is the intention of developing the towns at the cost of other regions of Goa. Doing this will result in irreparable harm to the fabric of social life in Goa and bring in its wake the difficulties that most metropolitan areas in the country face with massive migration of people to the city centres putting pressure on services like housing, water, sanitation and transportation which in its turn will set off a chain of problems which may not be easy to resolve.
Panaji on its own will also start showing signs of 'over-development'. You will therefore find that every now and then you have to break down something and re-build it anew since the compulsions will then be not to build new facilities and infra-structure but to utilize budgets before they lapse. An example of this would be while breaking down the old Panaji Market and building a new complex is desirable, breaking down the old GMC Complex building or a part of it which is not very old and in reasonable good condition to accommodate a new Multiplex for the IFFI is quite unnecessary. The old GMC Building just about 60 years old, as is understood, is still heritage and need not be razed to the ground to accommodate another gilt-edged aluminium and glass monstrosity. More such examples will be there or can be found. There is a long term cost to all this which the residents of Panaji have to look out for and that is a rise in levies and taxes like property/house tax to support all this Govt. infrastructure. There is also tendency on the part of the present Govt. to go seeking projects which are not really necessary for Goa. The IFFI is one such. Goa does not have very much film loving public. The staple diet for entertainment here is the theater/tiatr and music. Not very many movies are made in Goa. You do not have very many good quality theaters to show cinema and in fact is probably the only place in India where you get tickets for Hindi & English blockbusters in the first week quite easily. Then there is the matter of prudery where the IFFI in Goa and the Cannes Film Festival was talked of in the same breath. So with the IFFI not quite fitting the cultural mores of the place or Goa not having the infrastructure to hold it where was the need to accept the IFFI. A clear NO would have made good sense. Even by extended logic if you could draw a connection with the IFFI and tourism and hoping that it would really take off in the future and bring in hordes of foreign tourists, it would have made better sense to have it located at the beachside anywhere in Goa. Build a huge convention centre with mini-theaters or multiplexes and isolate it so that you could have truly a Cannes-style IFFI. The convention centre at other times could fit into Goa's plan of tourism to be host for international conventions/exhibitions or meetings and the theaters could show foreign movies to foreign tourists or to the limited number of local film buffs. Panaji could thus be spared from the hurried ravages of construction and could develop at a much more leisurely pace allowing for better planning and looking at the necessities of construction to retain the identity of the place. The negative effects of hurried construction and its impact on the environment can be seen with the IFFI link and the 4 lane road from the Secretariat up to Dona Paula being tenuous but in the hurry to get the IFFI up and running in time and for the sake of the road the stately trees which form the avenue from Campal to Miramar will be sacrificed. This is needed to be stopped at any cost and the trees which is our green heritage should be protected. If there had been time then there would have been an active and healthy debate on the matter and a way found to have both the trees and the road. Building roads and constructing buildings seems to be the present Govt.'s forte and one needs to investigate the corruption inherent in this when Govt. Corporations are given the contracts for implementing these programs. Building better roads is desirable but not wider roads since these have today become the single biggest death traps for our youth who are dying by the hundreds in road accidents. Goa's culture protected in the past by relative inaccessibility of which the narrow and winding roads was one of the attributes is all slipping and leaking away through the present wider roads and bringing in its wake death by means of over-speeding and rash driving. The present Govt.'s tendency seems to convert Panaji into another mini-Bombay with its attendant problems, difficulties and expense which all like-minded Goans should resist in the utmost. The efforts as one can see in the recent sprucing up of Panaji is all very superficial. Painting buildings etc. is an annual affair between one monsoon and another and is an easy way to appease the constituency by allowing the concerned to make some money. The same with the Panaji Ablaze initiative. The sculptures behind the Secretariat being defaced or road signs going missing shows the lack of support from the locals towards the 'Beautify Panaji' programs. Beauty should be intrinsic and invested into for longer periods. People should become prosperous and not have basic wants for them to appreciate beauty in their surroundings since otherwise they will find pilfering and selling the items an easy way to make money. Therefore let us try and build beauty in our way of life and culture and values intrinsic in it rather than embellish ourselves externally which are transient or passing things and once removed we show up our true naked self. Srinivas Kamat 212 Defence Colony Phase 2 Alto Porvorim Goa 403 521. 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