Dears, The text of the GT article of economist Ec. Rahul Goswamy, FMGB, KCG * in his personal capacity...which is quite substantial. Read the serious text after you are done with my humour.
Mog asundi. Miguel PS If you did not know earlier, the abbreviations are as under: Ec. = Economist FMGB = Fellow Member of the Goa Bachao KCG= Knight of the Core Group To hell with the Privy Purses and Royal Titles [Abolishment] Act, 1969, or whatever. If the Goa Government finds it good enough to prefix "Moidekar" Charles Correa's name with a "Padma Bushan" in the Officail Gazette of Goa Notification [not Advertisement] and Souza Towers occupants' board lists our friendly neighbourhood Pop Star as "Padma Shree" [literally meaning "Mr. Lotus" , but we will discuss the political connotation some other day], a few titles here and there would not harm anyone. Perhaps we will see a "Yashdaminini Nelly Furtado" ...for the popular Spanish singer, whose namesake in the Goa's PMSA is now a Rodrigues like the other Spanish singer Amalia Rodrigues! I wonder if Madhuri Dixit would like to prefix the Padma Shree to her name like the Rashtra Pati , Patni or Woe. The elections for the President have hardly ever hit a SIX ....except in Emergency! ;-) If the PS is exhaustive than the main posting, do not blame me. the Interim Report of the Task Force has set the precedent with its illustrative Appendix. Which reminds me: I would have died of appendicitis [an inflamed appendix] when I was barely six years old due to wrong diagnosis by our family doctor. He thought I had worms! The doctor who diagnosed it right [for me, not my detractors], Dr. V.G. Tar of Tar maternity home, died last evening and was cremated today. He was 75 years old. .................................................................................................................... One more plan not in our name - 1 The Task Force's report shows how government is fooling us – Rahul Goswami Look at the job description. A small group of people with some mixed skills is appointed by the government of Goa to prepare guidelines about planning in our two districts. Their job is made much easier because, a year earlier, a public movement had thrown out a Regional Plan for Goa that was designed by government, big real estate interests and a corrupt and pliant section of the local administration. For a start, this small group simply has to look carefully at all that was wrong with the rejected plan, list out what was missing, and design a system which ensures the next plan can be policed by the people who will have the final say. This small group of people - the Task Force for the Regional Plan for Goa 2021 - was assembled in October 2007 by the government and was told to give us (and the government) a status report and a list of needs before we went ahead with deciding what sort of planning was good for us - with our 359 villages and 14 towns, our rivers and kullaghars, our vaddos and khazans. In January the rot began - it takes less than three months for this government to influence even what is supposed to be an 'independent' group. A crucial village-level survey to be conducted by two experienced NGOs for the Task Force was delayed. That work remained undone all these months and with monsoon on the horizon, it has remained undone. In April, the Task Force, which was beginning to be asked some hard and uncomfortable questions, decided it needed more input. It had in these months been doing exactly what? We don't know. In the introduction to its interim report, the Task Force states it has taken the direction to "Incorporate Transparency and People's Participation". Not true. There is not a single instance of this Task Force describing how and why it arrived at conclusions that will, if unchallenged, result in a regional plan that will again damage us. There are no minutes containing discussions and differing viewpoints, no timeline of its own work, no assessment of needs and there is not a single mention of its own budget - with what funds will it do this job. It has not returned to the people every month to say "this is what we have done so far and this is what we intend to, so please come forth with your concerns and needs to help us build those in". It hasn't done so because it was never designed to. Goa contains hundreds of groups, institutions and people who have valuable perspectives on the long-term costs and opportunities of development choices for our state. Most of them have not yet been consulted: labour and trade unions, agricultural cooperatives, traditional artisans, tribalrepresentatives, those from the critically important social sector (health and education), fromfinancial institutions and from economists. Early in its misguided innings, the Task Force should have expanded to include these as key partners. It deliberately did not. Now this Task Force is racing to deliver to the government of Goa a draft Regional Plan on 30 June. We know from long and bitter experience that when government acts in haste we must only be suspicious. The Task Force has already proved that it has worked opaquely, not reachable by those it claims to represent, not answerable in any way to the people. Why is it furiously rushing now, when its job is woefully incomplete? This new plan cannot be finalised honestly this year. If it becomes effective my mid-2009 it will run until 2021 - that is for a period of 12 years. This interim report's projection for Goa's population in 2021 is 1.8 million - why is a plan that will affect so many residents being hurried along when we threw out Regional Plan 2011 for similar reasons? There are more indications that are worryingly similar. This interim report contains no fresh data, there is no up-to-date surveying of critical aspects of our lives (health, education, livelihoods, social and community security, eco-systems), there is no remote sensing imagery-based mapping, there is no dialogue. For a six-month old process none of this has even begun! And these are amongst the very same reasons we agitated against the criminally-minded Regional Plan 2011 and for which we threw it out. Worse still, the Task Force has till date seen "planning" as land use regulations, land use zoning and (real estate) development controls. This is unforgivably myopic. When for the last two years the people of Goa have been loudly and clearly showing their rejection of the current methods of planning, why is this "independent" Task Force using the same methods? What is being used to prevent it from doing otherwise? There is a notion - supported by a section of the media in Goa - that the interim report contains safeguards against over-development. This is false. It contains a set of suggested cautions, nothing else. Moreover, since this Task force is the one that has midwived the destructive amending of Sections 16 and 16 A of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1974, such cautions amount to nothing more than providing the government-real estate-big business lobby with the tools required to proceed in their conquest of Goa. None of these will ever be taken as binding by the government or any of its agencies. They will not be supported by a vigilant and empowered monitoring authority. Our own experience of the last 18 months tells us that. Many of the projects that wanted RP 2011 as their sanction have continued with the government of Goa choosing to remain powerless to halt them. That is why the residents of Carmona, Cavelossim, Benaulim, Colva, Orlim, Betalbatim, Majorda, Colomba, Siridao, Sancoale have mobilised themselves. These movements are far more robust in their knowledge and application of people-centric planning than such a Task Force can ever be, and if the "down-top synergy" the Task Force claims to champion had any substance, it is those men and women who would be the central 'people' element in this interim report. But of course it wasn't designed so. If not opposed and dumped, the 30 June draft Regional Plan 2021 will follow a track laid for it by the Goa Town and Country Planning Department, just as it was for Regional Plan 2011. [ This was published in the Gomantak Times, Panaji, on 26 May 2008. ] 2 -- -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-. Miguel Braganza, S1 Gracinda Apts, Rajvaddo, Mhapsa 403507 Goa Ph 9822982676 [EMAIL PROTECTED] -.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.
