Flying Circus VIII

Government of gatecrashers

It’s terrifying the way the Congress government acquires land, your land. One way to avoid that would be to sell your land, if you have sizeable tracts of it, that is, and if it lies next to or near an existing industrial estate. Of course if you are a bhatcar with land along the coast and you haven’t yet sold it, all you need to do is look heavenwards and you will spot those hundreds of Delhi vultures hovering in the skies, claws sharpened, waiting to zoom in on your land. That settled, here’s why you must sell your land under the first category before the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), Goa’s home-cloned land-predator casts its covetous glances your way. It is looking to buy a simple matter of just 20 lakh sq mts. And for what? A pittance is what you will get if you sell.

Pressure cooker effect

The IDC told “the newspaper you can trust” that it intends to acquire 20 lakh sq mts of land, your land, near various industrial estates. When this particular daily gets to know first; it’s either the real thing/ a test case to gauge public sentiment/ or both. There’s a background to this. If you live, god forbid, in the villages say for example between the Verna industrial estate and say a village like Utorda along the coast; you will know soon what is meant by the pressure cooker effect. I give these two examples -- Verna, because of its burgeoning growth that affects the villagers in its vicinity; Utorda, because if you drive down to the Uttorda beach, you will see for yourself that three Delhities have bought several lakh sq mts on either side of the road choking off the beach to villagers. To the left and right of the road is the existing Heritage Resort. Abutting all that is owned by Heritage on the left of the road, is more land owned by Goa Inn and even it has a bit of land ahead of the Heritage property and touching the road. So, on the left you have Heritage and Goa Inn. On the left of the road and ahead of the Heritage property is property owned by the Competent Group (further up the road) close to the beach. So, on the right you have Heritage again and Competent. It’s easier to understand if you were standing there. But trust me all that is left for the locals to enjoy is the narrow road. I choose Verna, because IDC has already acquired land there. Just for the record, the IDC has acquired a mind boggling 70,49,594 sq mts so far. That’s why I call it frightful.

Final Episode of Profligacy

So is this bill of Rs 93,82,850, your montris stitched you up with and which ends the Flying Circus series. Talk of profligacy! Are you not appalled at how Rs 93,82,850 can be spent by a dozen montris, without a care in the world. Still, relief could be impending. Vishwajeet Rane is back in the Congress, maybe Babush (who is also back in the Congress) has abandoned the plan to dislodge Digambar Kamat from within, since they (he, Rane and others) could not do it when they cobbled together the G-7 and saw coup after coup fail. The G-7 seems to have lost its fizz completely. Mickky' Pacheco has jaundice (and that’s the least of his problems, even he will freely acknowledge), Babush and Vishwajeet are now sleeping with the enemy. G-7 has shrunk to G-4. And it will be a year at least before they get restive. Happy days are here again.

Ramkrishna (Sudhin) Dhavlikar, Minister for Transport

2008-The Road Most Travelled

He began his flying dashing off on 01-02 April to Delhi, Rs 29,690+50, total Rs 30,210; and when his mission obviously failed, he turned to prayer because on 05-08 May he flew Mumbai-Pune-Shirdi-Pune, and you footed the bill of Rs 24,288+847, total Rs 25,135. He was back to the routine thing: 27-30 May, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 25,245+903, total Rs 26,148. His next flight obviously a junket, saw him board a Delhi- He wasH

Jammu-Mumbai flight on 18-21 June, Rs 32,236+788, total Rs 33,024. 26-27 June, Delhi, Rs 12,405+355, total Rs 12,760. Things were not working out for the rebellious G-7 or things simply got overheated (remember, even Churchill was going to join up if he had another shot at being CM) going by his frequent flying in July and August: 08-10 July, Delhi, Rs 22,750+615, total Rs 23,365; 16-17 July, Mumbai, Rs 12,830+520, total Rs 13,350; 25-28 July, Pune-Mumbai, Rs 15,045+703, total Rs 15,748; 05-07 August, Delhi, Rs 31,285+702, total Rs 31,987;13-14 August, Mumbai, Rs 19,105+355, total Rs 19,460; 25-27 August, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 26,460+412, total Rs 26,872. That ‘s six flights in two months all done by Business Class because Sudhin Dhavlikar likes doing his private business in a classy way. That too when you and I are paying. 14-17 October, Mumbai, Rs 15,970+797, total Rs 16,767; 27-29 December, Mumbai, total Rs 9,130.

2009 - The DA King

He began the year doing the usual in-out of Delhi/Mumbai. But look at the DA on one of his trips. It exceeded the fare cost. 06-09 January, Delhi, total Rs 31,760; 12-14 January, Mumbai, Rs 9,238+9,807, total Rs 19,045; 27-30 January, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, total Rs 16,146. 27 Feb-03 March, Chennai, Rs 8,646+17,175, total Rs 25,821. Look again at the DA of Rs 17,174, it’s almost double the flight cost. 13-15 March, Delhi, total Rs 18,045. On 29 May-01 June he flew Delhi-Mumbai for Rs 18,553 again getting paid a huge DA of Rs 16,212 total Rs 34,765 which easily earns him the title of highest DA earner in the category of montri frequent fliers, yes Sir, there’s more to come in other categories; because on 06-09 July he flew Pune-Delhi-Mumbai at a cost to you of Rs 20,051 and was paid DA of Rs 7,195 plus Rs 61 as ‘other’ expenses for a total of Rs 28,107. 05-07 September, Delhi, Rs 9,206+520, total Rs 9,726; 21-24 October, Kochi, total Rs 9,808; 20-21 November, Mumbai, Rs 6,879+442, total Rs 7,321.

2010

11-12 February, Mumbai, total Rs 11,925

Total: Rs 4,97,105

The Flying Club Cost

Vishwajeet Rane Rs 17,56,397

Churchill Alemao Rs 14,28,633

Digambar Kamat Rs 13,26,144

Joaquim Alemao Rs 12,34,442

Mickky Pacheco Rs 11,98,946

Babush Monseratte Rs 6,48,115

Babu Azgaonkar Rs 1,87,986

Dayanand Narvekar Rs 1,36,275

Ravi Naik Rs 4,08,749

Filipe Rodrigues Rs 40,306

Jose Philip D’Souza Rs 4,79,446

Sudhin Dhavlikar Rs 4,97,105

Grand Total: Rs 93,42,544



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