savegoa

Accidental Activist

Back to Square One

By Venita Coelho

Well, here we are back to square one – fighting one more time to get a Regional Plan that we are happy with. What a long journey it has been – all to end up in the same place all over again. Three years ago Goa spilled out onto the roads to protest a Regional Plan that was disastrous.

So vociferous were the protests and so many were the protestors that the Government actually cancelled the RP2012 and promised that it would include the people’s sentiments in the next plan. While the next plan ended up making no one entirely happy, there was a window for villages respond to the plans and to fill in a questionnaire asking for the development they wished for their own villages. It was months of hard work for both – the GBA and various villages.

I got laryngitis, twice, after explaining day after day just exactly how to tackle the RP2012. GBA members ended up exhausted and mentally drained. With no official training from the government, village regional committees and concerned citizens struggled with the task set them. Deadlines were extended time and again, but finally it was done. We heaved a sigh of relief – too early, it now turns out.

All that hard work has gone into limbo along with the Regional Plan. There are no assurances as to when the Regional Plan will be finalised. Neither do we know what exactly is going to be finalised in it. Will the village plans made by the villagers hold importance or be swept aside by the government’s plans? Will what we have asked for clearly as villages, be respected? What kind of development will finally be foisted on us? There are no answers – and above all – there is no Regional Plan. Like the Holy Grail, it remains lost in the mists of government procedures.

And in the meantime, the doors have been flung open. While we wait eternally for the RP to be finalised, permissions are being handed out hand over fist. Amendment 16 an 16A is a nice little loop hole through which any project can be shoved once it is branded ‘government project’. When the Pilerne Action Committee asked for details of building NOC’s handed out while we wait for the RP to finalised, the terrifying official reply was that they were ‘numerous’ and details could not be given without ‘diverting the staff from day to day work’. You can imagine the volumes of NOC’s that have been handed out! While we, good citizens, patiently wait for the Government to do the right thing, the government itself is busy subverting its own laws by using this window to pass ‘numerous’ projects – which it refuses to inform us about.

We have been taken for a royal ride. Like children being diverted with a lollipop, we were handed the RP2021 with so called ‘peoples participation’. That participation was never quantified, nor was it made clear whether it would be respected or included in the final plan. And, having taken the bait, while we waited around for the RP to be finalised, it was business as usual behind the scenes. There is no gentler way to put it – we have been made absolute fools of. What are these ‘numerous’ projects? What rules do they follow? Do they respect the areas marked out in the RP2021? Under what guidelines are they being passed? The government can’t inform us – it would take ‘diverting the staff from day to day work’ to give us these answers.

In this context it comes as a relief that the GBA has decided to hand out an ultimatum, saying it will take to the streets from 4 March if this passing of projects is not stopped, and a date is not set to finalise the RP. We have done our best to co-operate with the government like good law abiding citizens, working within the parameters the government gave us. But enough is enough.

When the government breaks its own laws, creates convenient loop holes, and chooses to keep citizens in the dark about its activities – then that government has lost its right to civil obedience. It’s time to take to the streets again. That seems to be the only language this government understands. We have fought this fight before and we will do it again. Let the government beware! This time we are wiser. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time Mr Kamat.

Accidental Activist

Back to Square One

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