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* * * 2006 ANNUAL GOANETTERS MEET - GOA * * *
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WHERE: Foodland Cafe - Miramar Residency - Miramar, Goa
WHEN: December 21, 2006 @ 4:00pm
More info:
http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2006-December/051747.html
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INTER VENTION
'Don't do to Goa what rest of India has suffered'
Wendell Rodricks
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The state government's regional plan is designed to destroy and devour
I settled in Colvale, Goa, in 1993, after a successful debut in design;
having lived in many cities: Muscat, Istanbul, Los Angeles, New York,
Lisbon, Paris. I come to Colvale for peace, creative inspiration and to
prove that it was possible to exist in mainstream India despite living in a
remote village in Goa. While everything went according to plan, I have
suffered many moments of anguish as to how my beloved village has been
selectively and systematically destroyed.
The government of Goa acquired the Covale plateau for developing an
industrial site in 1993. Though villagers could not buy land at Rs 250 a
square metre, the land was offered and sold to Binani Fibre Glass for 10
per cent of the prevailing rate. When the factory opened, it attracted a
manpower force that is 95 per cent non-Goans. All promises for local
employment proved to be an eyewash. Colvale was forced from rural to urban
status. Old people suddenly got electricity, water and telephone bills that
were so high that some cut their telephone lines.
With Binani came pollution. Colvalkars were shocked when coconut trees,
mangoes, bananas and their own skin got black patches. I have one on my
back as well.
The National Highway opened in 2000 and cut a wound in the heart of the
village. Each day some animal or human is harmed or killed. It is
heart-wrenching to see a calf licking the head of its mother cow, killed by
a speeding truck. A young boy ran into his mother's arms after school but a
truck stopped the embrace by a metre. Buses and trucks throw out cartons of
soft drink and junk food packs. No one can clear this nondegradable garbage.
The government wants growth. So do we. But where is the infrastructure?
People have no parks, no roads, no water, no electricity, no medical
facilities.
Goa is at the crossroads of her very existence. Her soul; her identity and
her beauty is being mercilessly sold off, all for the petty gains of a
petty few, in the guise of the monstrous, evasive and sinister 'Goa
regional plan 2011'.
We are set to witness an unprecedented social disaster if mega 5-star
projects, townships, condominiums, golf courses, resorts, etc take root in
our precious land. The regional plan that will cut forests, destroy the
entire coastline of Goa and permanently destruct the reason why Goa is a
tourist state. Let Goa not go the way of other Indian states burdened with
badly planned urbanisation.
We hope the regional plan is scrapped. We are saddened and angry, at how
our beautiful village Colvale was destroyed. We do not want this to happen
to any other Goan village. We have suffered and been guinea pigs of a
so-called progress. Do not let the rest of Goa suffer what we have endured.
For the future of Goa and as a testimony that we were not silent witnesses
to an atrocity, we need to protest and combat the evil forces that have
permeated India's golden state.
The writer, a fashion designer, is based in Goa
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