S Kamat AG 2, Sabnis Palace Alto Betim, Bardez Goa 403 521.
Citizen’s Editorial: For The Pursuit of Reason in Our Political System &
Consequent Governance
We have been pursuing the withdrawal of the plan to construct the 3rd Mandovi
Bridge ever since it was first mooted some two years ago. This pursuit has been
at the highest echelons of the government including the then Chief Minister and
after that the present incumbent as we come to the present day.
Simple Common Sense
The reason for this pursuit was to explain the complete redundancy of a third
bridge on the Mandovi River when two bridges already exist! Even if you ask
anyone even a child whether there is a need for the 3rd Mandovi Bridge they
would say that when there are already two bridges where is the necessity for a
third one. To confirm this premise when we took a poll of ten persons out of
which eight said that the 3rd Mandovi Bridge is not required. There were only
two who said the bridge was necessary, one was a builder from Porvorim and the
other one was someone who has just moved to Delhi but feeling homesick is in
Goa almost every week! The other unanimous response was that priority should
have been given to the second Zuari Bridge and repairs for the Borim Bridge
which work is critical to maintain the road links between South & North Goa. It
seems that we need to be of a higher order of intelligence to understand that
we still need a third bridge on a stretch of 50 meters of the riverbank when
two bridges are already existing.
Unnecessary Assumption of Cost & State Debt Burden
Apart from that the bridge is on a national highway where by all reasonable
logic one would assume that the Central Government would fund the project and
maybe the State Government would share part of the outlay. But it is astounding
to see that the State Government is footing the total bill for the 3rd Mandovi
Bridge at a budgeted cost of some Rs. 500 crores. It has been seen that
projects of this type and size run into cost overruns and over the time
variously put as 24 or 30 months that the project is scheduled to complete we
will see escalation in cost which will have to be borne by the State
Government. The fact that this kind of unnecessary outlay on a redundant
necessity at the time when Goa is facing difficulties in raising revenue
resources because of the ban on mining and the slack tourist season defies any
logic. Additionally Goa’s debt burden as on date is in the region of Rs. 60,000
crores and with just this one project of the 3rd Mandovi Bridge you are adding
Rs. 500 crores to this debt. This is the financial burden that we and our
future generations will have to pay. Is this then a sign of financial prudence?
Or is this a sign of sheer cussedness by those who govern us to add to the
State debt with no thought as to who will pay it up? It is also understood that
this project is being funded from borrowing availed from Central institutions
like HUDCO and others. Thus we would borrow money and construct a quite
unnecessary project which in the normal course should have been funded by
someone else. Makes eminent sense!!
Lack of Transparency & Public Confidence
The 3rd Mandovi Bridge project has not been put in the public domain so that
common citizens who will use and/or get affected by the project are aware of
what is in store for them during the implementation of the project and after
the bridge is commissioned. Requests to bring some transparency to the project
and share it with the people have been met with stone-walling at the highest
level of the State Government. This even after the news came through that in
June 2014 one of the bridges being built by the principal consultant for the
3rd Mandovi Bridge project had collapsed in Gujarat resulting in the death of a
number of construction workers. With the 3rd Mandovi Bridge being surely larger
in scale than the collapsed bridge in Gujarat, any sensible Government would
have had second thoughts about continuing with the project in hand. Obvious
action would have been to take a structural design review of the 3rd Mandovi
Bridge from an independent and reputed consultant and then share it with the
people. The other alternative would have been not to award the contract for
building the bridge until the structural design review was complete. In
complete contrast to this the tender for construction of the bridge was awarded
much after June 2014 and work commenced at the site from mid-Dec 2014.
Bridge Design Aspects & Public Safety
At the least when the new Chief Minister took over he should have by all
accepted norms asked that the project be frozen and instituted a serious
examination of the safety of the design and looked at more cost-effective
measures suggested like revamping the road formats and installing traffic
signals to handle the traffic congestion issue in the light of the revenue
crisis faced by the State. When we met to apprise him of the matter and pursue
for a decision to look at an alternate traffic plan obviating the need of the
3rd Mandovi Bridge, we found him unwilling to listen. In fact, he went on to
say that because the project was started by his predecessor, it is difficult if
not impossible for him to take any decision to stop the project. Does this mean
that the predecessor was infallible? If any project or scheme taken up by the
predecessor is absolutely wrong or erroneous, would it not have to be reviewed
by the next incumbent? On the aspect of safety that we reminded him in the
context of the bridge of the principal consultant collapsing in Gujarat, he
cited the example that a doctor’s patient may sometimes die but does that stop
people from going to that doctor. When pointed out that with that knowledge,
patients would surely take an alternate or second opinion on the treatment
suggested by the doctor, there was no answer from the Chief Minister. We are
dealing with people who are crassly insensitive to the public good and will
stubbornly continue to act what suits them or their party’s interests best.
Streamline Traffic & Save Bridge Costs
The alternate system recommended by us of modifying the roads, installing
traffic signals on the NH17 highway and alternate routing of traffic to
decongest the entry and exit for Panjim city would not have even cost Rs. 50
crores at the outside limit saving the State Government Rs. 450 crores from the
proposed outlay of Rs. 500 crores on the 3rd Mandovi Bridge project. The civil
works for this revamping would be done by the PWD/GSIDC and the traffic signals
are available from State & Central sector companies. The alternate system could
also be implemented phase wise starting immediately and completed within six
months of starting. This saving of Rs. 450 crores could have been used for the
public good of the Goan people, because many a government project is stuttering
to a stop because of lack of funds. Alternately, it could also have been used
to installing traffic signals all over Goa. This would have helped to regulate,
control and streamline traffic which is chaotic in all our cities particularly
and also our village communities. The installation of traffic signals and on
–demand signals to cross roads at various places around Goa would have helped
people to cross roads safely. These measures would have been an effective
mechanism to limit and bring down the fatalities and accidents on our roads.
Today some 500 people die on Goan roads arising out of traffic accidents. The
above revised traffic system would have gone a long way to bring down this
number of avoidable deaths. The 3rd Mandovi Bridge does nothing but bring
traffic faster from across the river and dump it across onto the other side.
Thus conceptually it will lead to congestion further away from the river on
both sides of the bridge unless roads leading up to the bridge and away from it
are improved and made wider. This problem is particularly acute for Panjim city
since traffic will be brought in and dumped onto the city’s roads. These roads
remain the same or have not been changed to either one-way or traffic re-routed
and we see traffic jams on these roads today. What will happen is that with the
new 3rd Mandovi Bridge, these traffic jams will become more acute and cause
major bottlenecks at both entry and exit points of the city near Patto. In fact
it may happen that in the absence of any revamping of the traffic system in
Panjim, you may have traffic backed up right onto the new bridge. Thus the 3rd
Mandovi Bridge would have contributed to increasing the traffic problems of
Panjim than resolving them.
Summarising we would request that a more rational assessment of projects be
made before they are implemented, their funding methods adopted which are
easier on the public debt and that the public be taken into confidence about
the nature, implications and consequences of any project. We have seen over the
years that this suggested rationale has not happened but the greater danger
that we see as we go forward is that the size of the projects that are being
pushed through in the name of ostensible ‘development’ has been dramatically
scaled up and thus their impact on the people, society and Goa is larger. That
is where the problem lies and that is why we need to exercise caution. People
should consequently be more diligent and more vocal than they are today since
sometimes these projects driven by vested interests can cause irreparable harm
to the fabric of life of the people of Goa.
The people of Goa should also be more responsive and pro-active in objecting
vociferously to massive projects with huge outlays like the 3rd Mandovi Bridge
project which at Rs. 500 crores is not exactly a small amount of money. This
outlay will be lead to general price increase since it will be recovered from
the common man in the form of taxes. Thus it is better to stop such wasteful
and unnecessary expenditure rather than complain about rising prices later. It
is also not advisable for common citizen’s to be complacent and believe that
come the next elections we can change the government which has been indulging
in excesses like unwanted projects, corruption and the like. While through the
ballot box the right to vote for change can be exercised, we should still voice
our opposition to any issue that we think is wrong, irregular and wasteful
during the period that any government is in power. Since otherwise knowing that
the people do not make their voice heard the indiscretions and excesses
committed by any incumbent political dispensation will progressively become
more frequent and the scale of outlay will continue to increase. This will
ultimately result in a situation that for the five year that we elect
governments the people will lose whatever voice they have in bringing a check
on the actions of the government. Not that we are not already into that kind of
a situation currently but one feels there is still time to correct the
situation.
The call therefore on this specific matter is to freeze the construction of the
3rd Mandovi Bridge on an immediate basis and look at alternate cost-effective
measures to streamline traffic making the bridge redundant and bring into Goa
the first level of automation in the form of traffic signals on our roads.
Srinivas Kamat
Eric Pinto - Porvorim.
Note: Both of us are engineers with vast experience in construction and project
management and are active in espousing social and environmental causes.
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