-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Reference No: GSRP/APJ-Kalam/POI/10/05
October 20, 2005 To, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. Your Excellency, Subject: Your visit to Goa on October 18, 2005 We are heartened by your short visit to our state, even more so, because you saw it fit to address Goa's elected representatives and give them the insight to your vision for Goa, to transform it into a modern state, offering high standards of living and quality of life for its citizens through your unique nine point 'Road Map for Goa'. The reason we have decided to write to you is to draw your kind attention to a similar Road Map for Goa, which this small, newly formed Party has offered to the people of Goa, to attain the same objectives that you have underlined in your 'Road Map'. We have taken the liberty to highlight portions of our 'Road Map' where these two road maps find common grounds, for, both converge on two very important aspects, one being that of 'jatropha' based bio-diesel, and, two, the necessity to have trained 'paramedics'. However, with a heavy heart, we would like to inform Your Excellency that no sooner than you left our august Legislative Assembly Complex at Porvorim, our esteemed MLAs and their party workers found it fit to get at each other' s throats and come to blows, erasing some of the goodness and the enlightenment that your visit has brought on our state and in our minds. We take the liberty of enclosing the newspaper clippings covering your visit to Goa, as well as of the unbecoming behaviour of our MLAs, immediately following your address to the Goa Legislative Assembly. Your Excellency, today, this once beautiful and clean state has been reduced to a state of a slum, where, due to lack of commitment and foresight on the part of our governments, Goa has become a big garbage bin. Authorities have been passing the buck for far too long with garbage remaining un-cleared for days on end, and, what is worst, it is being clandestinely dumped into our rivers and onto our highways and open spaces, so much so, that citizens have to keep eternal vigils and/or fight court battles to save themselves from the invasion of garbage. If Your Excellency 's itinerary did include a visit to our inner cities and public places such as our markets and bus terminuses, you would wonder if you really were in Goa or in Mumbai's Dharavi area. No doubt, we, in Goa, have had popular governments, with alarming frequency of 'President's Rules'. However, we in Goa look upon those short periods of 'President's Rules' with special fondness, especially the period of the President's rule by Lt. General (retd) J.F.R. Jacob in 1999. And we wish that when your recent visit brought you down to Goa, you would never leave, to make Goa your dear home rather than New Delhi. This is because we are slowly losing our dear old Goa to arbitrary governmental decision-making, reducing democracy to a mere mockery, where our entire city infrastructures, our forests, our cultivable lands and our open spaces are sought to be devoured through "Government proclaimed ORDINANCES" and which 'Ordinances' are signed in your name by our esteemed Governors, without a moment of hesitation and/or reflection. The instant cases are: (1) The 'IFFI (International Film Festival of India) Ordinance" passed by the BJP appointed Governor, Mr. Kidarnath Sahani during the previous BJP rule in 2004, to by-pass legitimate laws, rules and regulations of the Town & Country Planning Act, to allow the government to do as it liked with our ancient city of Panjim, not only wreaking havoc with our existing infrastructures, but replacing age old infrastructures with temporary and hastily built ones, which collapsed with the onset of just one monsoon, sending crores of taxpayer's money down the drain, and, (2) The latest to be proclaimed, immediately after the most recent Legislative Assembly Session has been concluded, is the draconian 'Town & Country Planning Ordinance' proclaimed by the Congress appointed Governor, Mr. S.C. Jamir, through which the Town & Country Planning Minister can change the land-use, anywhere in the state of Goa, at the stroke of a pen, destroying the years of meticulous planning to preserve our cultivable lands, our hills and our open spaces, and which Ordinance has put the entire state out of gear, altogether, with citizens trying to recover from this devastating shock and consolidating their positions for massive agitations. As the supreme commander of the nation, we implore Your Excellency to look, not kindly, but sternly on the politicians and the Governors of our small jewel of a state, so that it may not be lost altogether for Goans, as well as for India, as a treasure to be proud of. We are enclosing our Party's Constitution with a request to Your Excellency to note Articles 34, 38 & 41 therein. Thanking you, We remain, In the service of the nation, for Goa Su-Raj Party Sd/- (Dr. N.S. Dumo) President. Enclosures: Goa Su-Raj Party's Road Map For Goa. Party Constitution. Goa's newspaper clippings of October 19, 2005.
