Goa Is Crying Out For Help

The stench of rotting garbage. Plastics chocking the fields and rivulets, and littering the landscape as far as eye can see. Bumper to bumper traffic trying to get in and out of the city. Small dusty village roads clogged with thousands of MUVs and SUVs and mini buses and taxis, ferrying frustrated tourists to the once dreamy beaches of Goa. Unregulated, ugly concrete structures in fast disappearing open spaces. And a huge drop in fish production in the over-exploited seas.

The Manohar Parrikar goverment is barely into its first year, and the waves of problems ailing this once-beautiful land threatens to overwhelm it. With the Supreme Court banning all mining activity in the state, greens have breathed a sigh of relief, but the government now finds itself in a huge bind, a problem far larger than it anticipated. While the attempt to regularize mining and bring in environment friendly practices was laudable, with the complete ban in place, the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of Goans is at stake, and the state's coffers are empyting quickly. Unless some balance is achieved and mining resumes, there is a real danger of the state going bankrupt and unable to bear the cost of the much-needed infrastructure development and well being of the people.

All is not lost. Wide eyed tourists, both local and foreign (although it is generally the lowest category of spenders, not the high fliers!), still stream in, adding valuable moolah to the state's economy. Goa is still a preferred destination for investment in property, and in some sense, the big builders and the deep pocketed NRIs and Indians ensure some semblance of beauty and balance in the eye sores of the concrete jungle, especially in the beach belt.

Parrikar has also constituted a high powered committee to look after the garbage problem, and given it a lot of executive powers - and this should have a lot of impact state wide. His clean image is also very critical to the well being of this state, and while a lot remains to be done to root out corruption, there is definitely a lot of hope for the average Goan. I have heard of plans to run bus loops, construct multi level parking structures and much-needed bridges, and widen roads to the extent possible. All of these will go a long way in the rejuvenation of the state.

Here are some other measures I believe can help address many of Goa's problems, and have a long term positive impact on the economy and quality of life:

1) Use a carrot and/or stick policy (whichever method works better for the government in terms of ease and practicality in implementation) to encourage/enforce discipline in garbage disposal in the beach belt. Different measures could include a tax for garbage disposal to establishments/panchayats that do not achieve a certain level of garbage segregation and recycling, vermiculture and so on. If tax is negative way to enforce, then provide grants to establishments for creating effective recycling and vermiculture facilities. Publicly reward panchayats and/or hotels that do good - create an annual award with significant pride and money associated with it.

2) Levy pollution/garbage tax for vehicles entering Goa. I am not aware if there are any legal restrictions here, but if Mahabaleshwar can impose the tax, I am sure Goa can too. Use this revenue to create better infrastructure in the beach belt. I do not think the tax will work towards restricting vehicles from entering the state, but even if that does, that will only be good news for the local travel and cab industry. So maybe it can be pretty high too!

3) Think about converting the Calangute-Baga belt into a restricted vehicle zone. Deploy luxury low-floor buses on the route, ensuring tourists are not inconvenienced, and yet, the whole area becomes a buzzing marketplace and walking zone, ensuring a lot more revenues and business to establishments all over the belt, while reducing polution and increasing the fun factor for tourists across  much larger area (and not just Titos lane!). There are enough large areas where multi storey parking lots can be constructed - Calangute football ground, Baga exhibition ground opposite Brittos and so on.

4) Use public participation - a website which can be used by the public to report garbage dumping, bad roads, and so on. Do not make punishment the crux of such a system, but alleviation. When people look at it as a way to get rid of garbage, they will definitely participate in the exercise, being the eyes and ears of the administration. Focus on beautification, not on fines.

5) Make it compulsory for large projects to spend a percentage of the total construction spend on public beautification - adopt a traffic island, repair a road, build a pretty fence, put up a sculpture - whatever. The government can  also provide grants to inviduals below a certain economic level to beautify/paint their homes, as long as they stick to certain architectural guidelines. Enforce these strictly.

Goa is endowed with a beautiful land, and beautiful people. All it takes is a little discipline, and I am sure we can take our state to a whole new level.