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Sign the Petition requesting The Honble Minister of State for Environment
and Forests (I/C) to maintain the moratorium on issuing further
environmental clearances for mining activities in Goa
http://goanvoice.org.uk/miningpetition.php
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It is strange that Eng. Pinto took some many years to write his memoris. Better
late than never, good read for all specially those bharati cohorts who write on
who cares the bleep.
BC
Eng. VITORINO PINTO, head of the Goa PWD around the time of liberation, and
later Consultant in Environmental Sciences with the Geneva-based World Health
Organization (WHO), reminisces on the process of planning and execution of
development works in Goa, then and later.
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Reading about renovation work of the Panjim Municipal Garden, the good old
"Garcia
de Horta" of my times, I could not help but reminisce about how works were
planned
and executed in Goa in an earlier era... the '50s and early '60s. I was then
with the
Panjim Municipality and later with the PWD. That aspect has not been narrated by
any post-liberation Goan writer. As I happen to be the last surviving
participant in that
process, I decided to pen down some words before they are totally obliterated.
Goa was then a colony of Portugal, itself under a highly centralized and
totalitarian
regime. Most Goans were oblivious of the sorry political situation. But a quiet
and
unruffled existence of four centuries was giving way to a new entrepreneurial
spirit.
Goa was moving into a "take-off stage" of growth. This momentum came mainly from
the nascent mining industry. Revenues accrued to the State coffers. Stores were
full
of imported merchandise. Health and socio-economic standards of a population
(with
no migrants flooding in!) below the half-million mark were improving quickly.
Above
all, Goans were able to assert their unique personality, honesty and traditional
courtesy. It was in this climate that I started my professional career as a
civil
engineer.
