Consultancy, the money-spinner

The Ghost Who Walks

The contract for the colossal new Collectorate building being built at Margao was tendered in December 2007 at a cost of Rs 73,46,34,449. It won’t be ready in June 2010 as scheduled but in December and the cost has already escalated to Rs 77.50 cr which was expected. In fact, already the next projected cost is Rs 93 cr. It will soar (to Rs 100 cr perhaps?) and will go down as the most expensive ever built in Goa. And for what realistic purpose was it built? So that some government babu can harass you even more as you blunder from one floor to another looking for the chap who just stepped out for his umpteenth cup of chai? The government won’t give a Panchayat the talathi it deserves but it will blow Rs 100 cr on a new Collectorate building. A case in point is the Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim Village Panchayat’s talathi who also holds charge of the Velsao-Pale-Issorcim VP which means he comes to work only Mondays and Thursdays at Velsao. Because the Boss Man, the Mamlatdar of Mormugo, wants him there at Vasco da Gama, his base station, every now and then, the poor chap has become like The Phantom -The Ghost Who Walks; for no fault of his. In this case the government gets really mean. To make you go through the pain of a FI&IXV, it divided the three villages of Velsao VP between two Mamlatdars. Yes, there is a Mamlatdar and two joint Mamlatdars. Machiavellian? I thought so too.


Consultancy, the money spinner

1) The cost of civil works including plumbing, fire fighting and internal electrical works (at the Rs 93 cr level) is an estimated Rs 73,46,34,449 and the consultancy fee (i.e architectural and project management consultancy) is Rs 4,02,57,968.
2) The external electrical work will cost Rs 2,11,49,474 and the consultancy fee is Rs 11,58,991.
3) The cost of the internal, external and special lighting fixtures is Rs 74,40,000 and strange but true, the consultancy fee is Rs 4,07,712. In other words the consultancy fee for items 2& 3, both electrical jobs, itself works out to Rs 15,66,703 plus there already is an unknown consultancy fee for internal electrical works factored into item 1 (see above).
4) The elevator work will cost Rs 2,77,00,000 and the consultancy fee is Rs 15,17,960.
5) Air-conditioning the complex will cost Rs 1,93,02,803 and the consultancy fee is Rs 10,57,794.
6) The cost of the telephone exchange and UPS will be Rs 1,33,40,845 and believe it or not the consultancy fee is Rs 7,31,078.
7) The audio visual equipments for the conference room and AV room will cost Rs 44,00,000 and the consultancy fee for this is Rs 2,41,120.
8) The furniture will cost Rs 5,23,29,550 and lo and behold the consultancy fee for this is Rs 28,67,659.
9) There is a miscellaneous cost of Rs 2,32,000 and mercifully they didn’t need a consultant to tell them that. The magic figure at this moment is Rs 92,87,69,403 and the dice is still being rolled.


Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

You have by now begun to understand the current Cabinet’s compulsive obsession for big buildings and decided to live with it. That much is clear. But it boggles the mind when in a total cost of Rs 88,05,29,121 the consultancy fee works out Rs 4,82,40,282 and is growing. Now figure out the maintenance and other support costs of this monolith and notch that up as one more record that will be set by Goa’s most expensive building yet. And in your village meanwhile the streetlights don’t work, the narrow village roads are potholed, you are forced to buy your own expensive UPS because the power supply is as inconsistent as the figures above. Worse, you won’t be invited to the gala opening of the Collectorate knowing well that will also cost you a small fortune. And in villages a few people continue to clean up the beaches which hordes of domestic tourists dirty for the good of the tourism industry. And yet on September 21, Chief Minister Digambar Kamat flew all the way to Delhi with a delegation to convince the Information & Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni not to pull the rug from under the Entertainment Society of Goa. Her ministry wants to reduce the Entertainment Society of Goa’s role in hosting this year’s International Film Festival of India for all the right reasons. But the Goa government can’t have that, can it, considering its other obsession is IFFI; and all the tax-free perks of a good life that go with organizing it? Proof of its fascination is in the very timing of his visit, made when Delhi was in a flap over Jammu & Kashmir under its worse siege ever and the Commonwealth Games about to go kaput. Life goes on.


Battle of the Bulge

The Navy’s growing a belly. You wouldn’t expect the Navy to get the acquisition bug too. A long time ago, the Navy locked down the old road to popular Bogmolo beach. It really hurt because you could cycle down to Bogmolo from Vasco da Gama. It was all done for a sacred cause, blah, blah. All the while, the Navy only employed more men and lost more aircraft, nothing else. The Navy is now going to acquire over 30 lakh sq mt including the traditional Bhimvel beach. The excuse this time is the fear terrorists might strike at aircraft from the islands which are to be acquired. Why not patrol the St. George islands from the seaside and maintain a land-based force equipped with night vision and whatever it takes? That would make everyone happy. I could point out a few thousand shanty homes in Zuarinagar where terrorists could launch shoulder- fired missiles, a high-rise hotel in Bogmolo with a gallery view of flying aircraft plus 5-star comfort, and a few hundred safe havens in Vasco da Gama to set up base. Why use the difficult island option when you can do your dirty work from the safety of land? In fact Vascoites have expressed fears that if the fuel storage tanks in the town containing millions of litres of fuel are blown up, there would be no Vasco and no Mormugao Port, and no Goa Shipyard which ironically builds only naval ships. But who cares?


(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164