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I have been reading with interest, postings by young Samir about
traffic issues, and what he thinks is a great job done by MARG in
educating people - he says 'tens of thousands of people, students, bus
conductors, bus drivers...." So who is left behind??!!!
What a load of rubbish. The rot is at the top, and not at the bottom
where the poor people are. The plain truth is that the governments of
Goa over the years, and continuing with Samir's pal Digu today have
not made any long term plans for growth of traffic and population.
Goa has no infrastructure in place and things have gone out of hand.
So instead of wasting time and money, I think MARG would be most
effective if they educated the powers that be to start with. There is
no Road Authority as such in Goa. The very system is flawed. A Road
Authority is a body that is responsible to:
1. Plan future roads
2. Build and Maintain roads
3. Set and enforce traffic rules.
4. Issue Driver's Licenses.
5. Maintain registration of vehicles.
4. Monitor the general traffic scene.
Instead, we have a system where roads are planned by one body, built
by another and usurped by anybody! Parking is no priority, so where
do you expect people to park their cars? Imagine the national waste
having hundreds of cars circling round the city looking for a car
park. What a waste of precious fuel! Every residential building must
have its own space to park cars of the residents so they dont use the
public roads to park their cars. Every commercial building must have
space for customer parking. The city has to grow outwards and not
towards its roads. Traffic signs are another sore point. While the
roads are not capable of handling traffic adequately, we see funny
signs limiting the speed by the type of vehicles on the road. How
silly is that? If the lowest speed limit is granted to trucks, then
all the traffic will flow at that speed limit. It is a known fact
that while high speed accidents usually prove fatal, majority of road
accidents as such take place at slow speed and there are literally
thousands of maimed citizens all over Goa to prove this fact. Go to
the GMC and see how many are there today/
Wake up Samir, wake up Digu, wake up Kelekar Sr. Set the system right
and the rest will follow. And most importantly, do away with the
hafta system prevailing at the RTO offices. Sack the scoundrels who
work there, and appoint honest Directors and Inspectors. Even the
staff right down to the office peons must be sacked - they are all
corrupt. I know it will hurt your pockets: we know you too get a cut.
But for the betterment of Goa, it must be done. Then only we will
have drivers who know the rules on the roads, and then only will our
roads get a little safer. Recently I had a friend of mine come from
Portugal and as we drove around Panjim, poor chap had his heart in his
mouth. I cannot say that no one follows the rules. There are just no
rules to follow. So people just do what they want on the roads,
putting everyone at risk. It is indeed a surprise that there are only
around 300 road casualties each year. But what about victims of road
accidents who dont die. Victims who are injured thus loosing income.
Or victims who dont recover at all. I suppose these dont get reported
at all.
I challenge Samir to stop the rut of corruption at the top first. And
if Samir cannot take up that challenge, I throw the challenge open to
others on this forum. Others like Rajan Parrikar, Anil Dessai etc!!
It does not matter where you guys are, or what citizenships you hold.
I love the saying: "You can take a Goan out of Goa, but cannot take
Goa out of the Goan"
Let us make our Goa a better place. A better place for us, and an even
better place for our grandchildren in the years to come.
Raj
Rajesh Dessai
