The New Year- January 7,2008

Goa's Nariman Point!
That was the title of the thick folder showcasing Patto Plaza when EDC wanted to auction 14 prime plots in the commercial plaza in 1989. Beneath it, read the legend 'Grab it before it goes.' Several years down the line the plaza looks like an obstacle course with at least one alfresco urinal opposite the Gera construction, a road and both pavements merged into one (opposite IDC) and many of the buyers are fed up. The huge square when not used as a huge bus park for buses owned by TCI confounds drivers because they are yet to figure out which way to drive. Are both sides of the square two-way lanes or one-way. No driver has figured that out yet because the builders themselves haven't.
Promised to them was infrastructure like sewage, storm water drainage, elevated and underground water tanks, underground electrification, sewage treatment plant, electric sub-station, landscaping, a shopping complex, cinema theatre, hotels. How many times have the Congress and EDC said the last three were never on their agenda? So, why mention it in the brochure in the first place. The only pleasure out of this is that the Congress is not only taking Goans for a ride, it is duping Mumbai's and Delhi's big builders who are responsible for changing
Goa's skyline.

Rules meant to be broken
Restrictions on visits abroad for study tours, seminars, conferences, workshops etc involving government funds read as follows: Rule 4. (a) "The strength of foreign delegations on official tours shall not exceed three members including the minister. PS/PA's to ministers shall not accompany the delegation. The period of deputation shall not exceed seven days excluding the journey time. All proposals for foreign travel/visits must be concurred with by the Finance Department before being put up to the Chief Secretary/Chief Minister. There should be a gap of a minimum of three months between two foreign tours."
The Ministry of External Affairs has its own rules and regulations for "political clearance for visits of high dignitaries, ministers and officials of State Governments" including a '8-point proforma' that is never followed by Goa's frequent flyers. In fact, the Finance Department issued an office memorandum on September 24 pointing out that foreign tours were being organized without following the procedure laid down and "in a number of cases tours are conducted without taking approval of Government of India including Cabinet Secretariat." There is off course none to judge Goa's new rulers and so this wasteful and continuing expenditure will never be investigated.

Sunny Side Up
So far we've had restobars and lounge bars. Newer concepts are probably on their way to Goa. This one – it is as yet not officially conceptualized, but going by its location could be called a dunebar. Because it is built on old sand dunes a few metres from the high tide line. The Sunny Side Up on Candolim beach could be one such. It's owned by a mysterious Delhite (nobody knows who) and can't possibly have any sanction or license that could stand the legal requirements of the CRZ or building laws, though its owner I am sure has many documents to show. Its awesome size, modern wash rooms, kitchen, sewerage system and elevated platform clearly could never have gone past any legal scrutiny which is why officials of the Tourism
Department along with a private consultant inspected it in December possibly because the owner may have encroached on some land owned by the department. Tons of sand must have gone into elevating the land on which Sunny Side Up was built to raise it above the roofline of the shacks in front of it and give it a view of the sea.

Hardboiled
The owner even built an elevated path to the restaurant. It's not a licensed beach shack as we know it because it's not a temporary structure, though it's only a few metres from the shacks in front of it. It's (supposedly) not a permanent structure because then it would have to be illegal. But permanent it is because it runs through the off-season when every other beach shack shuts down. Yet, for sheer infrastructure (example: its powerful lighting) it has more than any other restaurant on Candolim's shore. It's a dunebar, the Delhite's latest unprincipled rest and recreation contribution to fun on the beach while Goan entrepreneurs are made to bend and crawl for shack licenses by their own montris. It happened, a few metres from Sunny Side Up. It happened up north too when Micky Pacheco tried to stop Cruz Cardozo (a Churchill supporter) from setting up Pearl's Beach Café. It was Churchill who stopped his PWD workers from demolishing his shack on November 26 after they arrived there from wrecking other
shacks in Utorda, Arossim. Keep watching this space while you scramble for your GT and your morning eggs.