To Goanet -
Bosco D'Mello wrote:
>Briefly.....Manohar Parrikar's perspective and vision to bring
>SEZ/industries to Goa, especially the pharma/bio-focused and IT Parks was a
>good one. Unfortunately they were not realised before he was prematurely
>disposed as CM. They are certainly environmentally friendlier than the
>polluting mines. However the implementation of the SEZ was skewed by the
>current government.
>
>As far as GMAS/Mathany is concerned.....the Goanet archives will attest to
>Mathany calling SEZ a 'disaster' in July 2003....12 months later Parrikar
>inducted him into the cabinet and possibly bought his silence. Now if
>Mathany was genuinely against establishing a SEZ in Goa, don't you think he
>should have protested at the time in 2003 or 2004 especially when he was
>part of the government? If he protested, I have no knowledge of it. Is this
>not the same politician who in Sep 2004 promised to quit the cabinet if the
>River Princess was not towed away by January 2005? If he quit, it did not
>make it to the Goanet Archives either. Oh yes, the Congress opposition at
>the time termed the River Princes "an ecological time bomb waiting to
>explode causing long term marine pollution besides being an eyesore." BAH!!
>
>It was really surprising to see Parrikar support/be a part of GMAS and
>oppose SEZ (in 2007) even though he promoted SEZ as a Chief Miniser (in
>2003/04). There is possibly some ambiguity in his stance - he possibly does
>support a SEZ policy for Goa but not in the format implemented in the 3
>cases.
I had occasion to informally ask Manohar Parrikar about the
allegations that he had supported SEZs earlier. He said that
his position on the issue has been misrepresented in the
media, that his idea was nothing like the massive land scams
perpetrated by the Congress governments, that the tax
situation etc was different during his time, as was his vision
for Goa and Goans.
My own position is that SEZs for Goa are a no-go in any form,
whether they are BJP-sponsored or Kangress-sponsored.
Concerning your remark about Matanhy's silence being
bought: I think it to be highly unlikely. I have not had a
discussion on this matter with Matanhy, so I cannot say
more on this.
The questions you raise are strong, and we have a way
of addressing them. All it takes is one good journalist to
haul his/her video camera and request a one-on-one with
both these leaders, directly capture their version on camera,
and upload the footage to YouTube.
If there are any takers, I can arrange for these sessions
although that shouldn't be necessary given the easy
accessibility of both these men. We can then match their
recorded version with any earlier position (if a credible
report of that is available) and locate discrepancies, if any.
But let us come back to the heart of the matter: what
Manohar Parrikar could have, would have, should have,
might have done apropos of SEZs is in the realm of the
hypothetical. The firm and established reality is that it
is the Congress that brought these SEZ monsters to Goa.
Not 1 or 2 or 3. EIGHTEEN of them !! These Congress
vermin wanted to sell Goa wholesale to outsiders, first
under Pratapsing and then under Digu. And don't
forget the fraud of the RP2011. It is these two post-2005
Congress regimes that have affixed Goa firmly on the
Formula One fast track to doom.
Digambar Kamat sat by silently - willfully and deliberately,
in my emphatic opinion - while another SEZ was notified
on his watch. This is the standard operating procedure of
the political crook who knows that once you push the
project through it is hard to then retract it from the
morass of the legal logjam, that there are later ways and
means of 'regularizing' the violation should it run into
popular turbulence.
I was there on Nov 12, 2007, twice in a single day at Digu's
official residence. First alongside the GBA folks, then in the
afternoon with Matanhy and his GMAS troops. Digu's manner
and attitude said it all. In the first instance, he was told that
an important file pertaining to the Aldeia de Goa project had
gone missing. You would think that the CM would be livid,
at the very least, perturbed, & demand answers from his
bureaucrat (Ahmed Morad), order a probe. Nothing of the
sort happened. Digu instead promised to "study."
This didn't look like a man concerned with the widespread
despoliation of Goa. This wasn't a man keen to get to the
bottom of it all. (But that didn't stop the GBA convener - who
was present at this first meeting - from presenting Digu a
bouquet of warm praise in a newspaper column some
weeks later.)
Same thing happened in the afternoon. Digu again pleaded
he needed to "study" the matter of SEZs. While Digu was busy
"studying," another SEZ was quietly notified. He couldn't
have not known about this.
Warm regards,
r
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