IN RAIN-SOAKED GOA, WATER SHORTAGES BECOME A POLITICAL ISSUE PANAJI, May 10: Some two dozen people sat before the man who has been Goa's chief minister on three different occasions, and water surfaced as one of the issues in this part of Saligao constitutency.
Saligao, the North Goa constutuency some 8 kms from Panaji, that long voted for ex-Goa CM Dr Wilfred de Souza as its MLA, is just adjacent to the North Goa coastal touristic belt. It is also home to the most rampant sale of water by tankers, from villages like Sangolda, Guirim and Saligao itself. To add to its woes, as the groundwater gets depleted by incessant drawal for sale at around five paisa a litre, parts of the village now get tapped-water supply for just one hour every alternate day. Hotels in the coastal zone, including their swimming pools, meanwhile, somehow get the water supplies they need. "We're being cheated of our ground water, and it's being sold," says Mrs Isa Vaz, raising the water issue at a recent campaign meeting for Dr Souza. Pointing to figures thrown up by a study undertaken by concerned villagers, it was noted that four hundred thousand (400,000) litres of water are being sold each day from some nine wells in this village alone. Water is drawn and ferried out of the village by tankers. Goa recently passed a groundwater protection law, which however is still to be effectively implemented. It has also come in for criticism of being ridden with loopholes. Faced with the ire over water, local MLA Dr Wilfred de Souza argued that villagers need not worry about what would be the plight "of our children". Souza said that large pipes are already being laid to bring water from dam projects in interior Goa. But it's not so sure whether laying down pipes would ensure that water flows through them. Goa, which gets roughly 300 cms of rainfall (over 100 inches) each year, has been unable to solve the state's water needs through dam-dependent centralised water schemes. Projects like the Salaulim irrigation project have seem over ten-fold cost overruns. Piping in water from the eastern interiors to the populated coastline is also fraught with its own difficulties. In the past, Goa's naturally-evolved water-management strategy dependend on villagers having their own wells. But these are falling into disuse, or can't cope with the insatiable appetite of the hotel and industrial or building lobby. Sometimes, in cases like Saligao, the wells are being simply sucked dry. Facing some angry sentiments, Dr Souza said he himself had accused the ground-water minister of allowing people to "rob" groundwater, while the water-table was going down. Another villager, Nicholas Sequeira pointed out that Saligao "has been suffering" due to the extraction of water, while the Goa government did not have sufficient water to meet the needs of the tourism industry. But, he felt, if the new pipeline is sanctioned, the demand for water (which is sold outside the village, including to the Navy colony two villages away) would be dropped. "Hopefully, these plans will materialise," he said. Later, in the discussion interspersed with appeals for votes, the MLA also conceded that there is a water problem even close to his home, at the other end of Saligao. Said Souza, a septuagenarian double-FRCS and one-time arguably Goa's best surgeons: "I gave my land and made a road (in front of my house). Now, every two minutes -- throughout the day and night -- there's a tanker taking water on that road. He's minting money out of it. I blame myself for making the road. The intention was not to encourage the tankers." Irked over the situation, villagers have been studying the impact of drawing out such large quantities of water on traditional wells in the area. Even in normal monsoon years, they reported, there was a fifty percent increase in wells in the area around where water is being sold that ran dry for the first-time ever in the summer months of April or May. In other parts of Goa too, there have been reports of water shortages coming in, particularly in North Goa. Caretaker chief minister Manohar Parrikar appealed to citizens not to get "panicky" over the situation. Last monsoons (2001) was a poor one, but the unsustainble water-guzzling industries, tourism, and building-boom is increasingly making its presence here felt. (#) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=-= To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet =================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
