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Dear Manohar Parrikar


Please read this article of Dr. Joe D'Sousa who has written in Navhind
Times in July 16,2002 and today it appeared in the Internet forwarded  by
Dr. J.Colaco, which reads  that Panjim is sinking and we still feel that
the sinking has not stopped but in fact it has become worse. Parrikar being
a MLA of Panjim could have saved Panjim for further deterioration. Low
lying areas in Panjim have high rise buildings , especially at Mala, Neugi
Nagar, Patto Merces, St Cruz, Aivao-D.Paula  etc Why TCP is allowed these
illegal constructions and given approvals. Minister of Environment Alina
Saldanha does not visits these low lying areas and only waits for people
complaints and fights with MLA's for not attending it? CCP is sleeping for
lack of funds and GSIDC has taken over. It is better that CCP is dismantled
or closed down. Flooding everywhere in Panjim. Rains playing havoc. No
control of Parrikar administration for any thing, corruption is increased
instead of Zero tolerance as he claims. Politicians are busy conducting
foreign tours as Goa is left at the mercy of GOD.


Stephen Dias

Senior citizen and resident of

D.Paula

=====================


  Goa's capital Panjim is sinking


*BY Dr. Joe D'Souza*
*courtesy Cybervoices, NavhindTimes, Goa*




PANJIM, July 16, 2002


The rhetoric of good governance and clean administration by the BJP
government has been proved false by the rain gods. Within a week of the
onset of monsoons the capital city of Panjim, and, the constituency of the
Chief Minister was reeling under floods.

The roads everywhere were with waters knee deep.

There were several accidents, with cars falling into culverts meant to
drain off water from the city into the river Mandovi. The drains were
choked with plastic, the trees although trimmed by the Electricity
Department and the Panjim Muncipal Council were uprooted, blocking roads;
the scenario elsewhere in Goa was no different, the normal monsoons saw
life paralysed, houses destroyed with uprooted trees, falling like nine
pins. The only good thing which the Chief Minister promptly did, was to
give financial aid to the victims of the “Monsoon Malady” at the cost of
the humble tax payers of Goa and ensure popularity for himself and his
party .

Not long ago in the columns of a local daily, I had indicated that
Panjimwas in distress due to corruption and greed among politicians. *The
unscrupulous real-estate lobby together in league with obliging bureaucrats
and avaricious politicians have plundered Panjim and its surroundings*. The
steep hill slopes which are essential to soak in water and act as “sponges”
or “rain absorbing carpets”; be it at Altinho or at Dona Paula, are today
covered with concrete jungles.

Although Town and Country Planning rules are clear that no constructions be
allowed on slopes with 1:10 gradient, the urban surroundings, specially
along hill slopes are covered with buildings and other concrete structures
destroying the lush landscape all together.

The planners in the erstwhile Portuguese regime had blue prints of drains,
culverts and storm water pathways to channelise the waters from the
monsoons showers from the hills into the low line areas around Miramar,
Patto marshland, and an equilibration pond near Portais, close to the
building where North Goa Planning and Development Authority is now housed.
They were fully aware that during the high tide, the waters from river
Mandovi would rise above the ground level in Panjim and flood it. Hence the
low line areas, the water balancing ponds at Portais, the mangrove
marshlands at Merces, Santa-Cruz and around Patto Bridge were planned, and,
used not only to receive and collect the river waters during high tide, but
the rain waters during heavy monsoon showers as well.

*The Portuguese administrators built culverts and drains in Panjim in a
scientific manner* so that even under threat of heavy showers and even
cyclones the city was protected by trees and sand dunes; thus the adverse
effects of storms and floods did not affect the citizens.

*But what has happened in the last decade has been atrocious.* The drains
and culverts neatly placed from Altinho hillslope to the river Mandovi are
obstructed and reclaimed by the real estate lobby, the one sided prunning
of trees and covering up the root region with concrete by the
administration of Panaji Municipal Council and the Electricity Department
has made the trees with weak roots to lean dangerously in one direction.

Thus these trees which were supposed to cut off the speed of the winds
during monsoons and act as lungs of the city are uprooted at the slightest
action of the monsoon wind and cause accidents, while instilling fear among
the residents in the city.

The hills and hill slopes in and around Panjim, which were once emerald
green and were the aquifiers absorbing the rain waters and thus charging
the ground water and which also supplied clear and clean water to the
residents of Panjim who had wells, in each & every house, are today covered
with concrete grey jungle. The rain water precipitation over Panjim city is
no longer absorbed into the ground water body as in the past, but is
drained into the city over the tarred roads and through the concrete
jungle.

The Panjim city, which in reality, is a reclaimed marshland of the
nineteenth century, is today suffering from an acute stress of soil
erosion. The silting of Mandovi river, due to unscientific human activities
in Panjim over the last 20 years has added nails to our coffin of woes.

*The glitter of the BJP slogan of good governance has been exposed as empty
and meaningless.* The BJP government today is known for its “Indifference”
and not for its difference. Panikar only created a temporary wave in his
favour by booking opposition MLA’s from the Congress for acts of
corruption, other wise none of his decisions have reached it logical
conclusions like the stopping of the matka menace and the Miramar Sex
Scandal which he vowed to end.

But the indifference shown to corruption in his own government, has raised
eye brows and created doubts in the minds of the people of Goa regarding
his intentions and potentials. The attempt to expose Ravi Naik, and the PWD
contractors in the Rajiv Kala Bhavan Scandal at Ponda, once the minister
was out of the BJP, is one clear instance.

The BJP Government and the Panjim Municipal Council has spent several
crores of rupees in the frequent digging and covering up of drains and
culverts in Panjim and resurfacing the tar on roads in the city, besides
giving a pseudo face lift to the council building in the heart of the city.

The inconvenience caused through the frequent digging in 2001, was
indicated to permanently solve the problem of flooding of Panaji. But as an
“activist” Aires Rodrigues claimed in one of his writings that the
councillors or the “city fathers” as they are affectionately called,
constituting the present Panjim Municipal Council (PMC) are equally corrupt
and inefficient as their predecessors.

The President of PMC, Ashok Naik has squarely blammed the Public Works
Department of the Goa Government for all the present malaise of the Panjim
city. But one wonders as to how the chief officers of PMC has allowed this
malignancy to initiate and continue, inspite of several powers bestowed
upon him and the council, making the responsible and duty bound to inspect
as well as to grant permissions for construction activities within the city
limits.

The government machinery seems to be in sixes and seven. This is a clear
case where the *left hand is ignorant of what the right hand is doing*. For
example the Goa PWD built a Police outpost building at Dona Paula without
informing the PMC and getting its approval.

The officers in the PMC are known to involve themselves in various
activities and private business during office hours. And very often those
working in the council reportedly acquire tenders for road widening,
asphalting, resurfacing, digging, cleaning in the names of their close
relatives or involve themselves in ‘binami’ transactions. The councillors
in Panjim only churn out souvenir magazines with their photographs and
messages, sponsored fully by the real estate sharks who are responsible for
the destruction of Panjim.

No doubts the Municipal Engineers, other officers and even clerks and
accountants are owners of machinery involved in carrying out public works,
if not owners of hotels and restaurants.

Ever since Parrikar became the MLA of Panjim and now the Chief Minister of
Goa, he has harped on good governance and deliverance. *The only solace for
the people of Panjim is that the people here have remained alive by the
grace of God, despite the increased cases of malaria and enteric diseases
due to stagnation of rain water all around and the mixing of sewage water
with the tap water as a result of water logging*. Incidentally, the sewage
pipeline runs very close to the domestic water pipeline, although it is
unhealthy, dangerous and an unscientific exercise. This year over 4500
slides were screened to detect the malaria parasite. Nearly 1500 persons
were found positive for the deadly Plasmodium, Falciparum malaria parasite.

*Well waters in Panjim have high load of enteric micro organisms*.

The ordinary people of Panjim in particular have to wade through flooded
roads with stinking garbage floating all around. The renovation of Panjim
market with lakhs of rupees from the taxpayer account, has added more filth
and stagnation of refuse rather than giving quality facilities to the
people of Panjim, as promised by the BJP.

One does not understand the logic of the Chief Minister giving crores of
rupees subsidy or incentives to the tourism sharks and hoteliers at the
cost of the common man.

*How can this sinking of huge funds in tourism sector help Goans, when the
infrastructural facilities to support tourism are badly lacking.*

Is it to payback and thank the hoteliers, who had supported the BJP in the
last elections? No doubts, tourism is slowly dying in Goa. With the steep
increase in deaths of people including foreigners due to malaria, enteric
infections, AIDS and crime, tourism has suffered. There were 2,60,000
tourists in 2001 compared to arrivals of 2,92,000 tourists in 2000. With
grounded ship ‘River Princess’ at Candolim and oil pollution on our
beaches, can tourism grow?

The unscientific constructions on hill slopes and the reclamation of land
near to Home Science College now housing the T B Cunha School and the
sports ground around housing Campal, has allowed has caused the rain waters
in Panjim to stagnant.

This is because the low lying areas of Miramar, Portais Patto and
Santa-Cruz have been reclaimed and today are above the water level which
they were supposed to receive from the Panjimcity.

To add to the woes of Panjim, the mangrove forests and marshland around
Santa-Cruz, Patto Plaza, and Merces too are destroyed - reclaimed &
transformed into housing complex and private garages and commercial units.

With incessant rains the soils in Panjim are slowly carried - into the
Mandovi basin. This soil erosion coupled with siltation of river Mandovi
basin is adding stress on the terrain.

*The centre of Panjim is slowing “caving” in a form of a depression.*

During a discussion with Gomantak Times Editor Pramod Khandeparkar, a
person who has observed Panjim’s transformation over the years, he too
expressed his studied observation that the heart of old Panjim city is
slowly sinking. The unscientific mushrooming of the concrete jungle in
lowline areas, cutting of hill slopes, increase in plastic garbage choking
drains, blocking of drains by perpendicularly erected buildings, by filling
up culverts, the disuse of ground water from domestic wells, destruction of
mangroves; all add up to make Panjim venerable to the forces of nature.

*So, will Panjim sink to become a Archaelogical city for the Future?*

*It is a pity that the wells in Panjim generating pure water during the
Portuguese regime have to close down today.* Like Calangute, which has
destroyed its ground water potentials with sewage percolations, the
numerous hotels in Panjim, too have contaminated ground water with a high
load of enteric bacteria. During our recent scientific survey of the wells
in the city of Panjim, we were surprised to note that the wells in the
heart of the city are the breeding ground of mosquitoes and contains large
loads of microorganisms which act as feed for the mosquito larvae.

While the world over, the decentralization of the water distribution is
widely accepted and acknowledged, in Goa the water distribution is still
centralized and often technically unfeasible and uneconomical. Bringing
water to urban areas with pipelines from far away places not only
contaminates the water with pathogenic microorganisms, but it is also
widely observed that the brownish water which reaches Panjim is covered
with mining rejects and contaminated with iron and traces of manganese.

Greed, corruption, lack of foresight, lethargy, ignorance, egoism,
selfishness and low initiative among the councillors, the legislators and
the bureaucrats, who are supposed to collectively plan and execute
developmental schemes, have resulted in the dying of urban areas in Goa.
The real estate lobby, hoteliers and the business houses have been in
regular touch with the Chief Minister. They have been successful in making
the present government believe that tourism can usher prosperity even if it
is haphazard and unscientific.

No doubt, the budget on tourism has increased four times over the period of
two years, however, the tourists coming to Goa have dropped, crime has
increased and the quality of life of the citizens has deteriorated. With
hoteliers as advisors of the Parrikar government, can one expect
sustainable development? It is high time the people of Panjim in particular
and the people of Goa at large, should wake up to save Panjim and Goa from
the imminent disaster before it is too late to save Goa’s capital from
sinking further, by banning the reclamation of low line areas and mangroves
all around Panjim and stalling the further mushrooming of the concrete
jungle in an unscientific manner all around.

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