Today's HERALD had an interesting op-ed article by Joseph Zuzarte titled "Changing face of Goa".
He says: ".. the state has burgeoned into a sprawling urban settlement with even tarred roads in the most remote areas.." He adds: "The mindsets of the people however would not seem to have changed alongside". Astutely he observes: ".. the status of the garbage and sewage disposal systems (non existent) is the most telling comment on the evolution (or lack of it) of Goan society." So he asks: " How can a society which still lives largely in villages be expected to think up urban solutions?" He points out that the Portuguese designated Panjim as a capital city and planned it accordingly (at least as far as the road network is concerned). Similarly they designated a number of towns in Goa and endowed them with municipal councils. In contrast villages were run by village panchayats. Yet, some of these villages and aggregations of them seem more urbanised in appearance (i.e. in terms of building structures) than the towns and capital! What takes the cake in Zuzarte's analysis is that one constituency recently voted a certain person to power because he promised to take it out of the domain of Panjim city and back into the days of the village panchayat! What's going on here? More important, what is the way forward?
