Only in Goa

Miss Moneypenny flows

It rained this year more than even Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, could have predicted even if he could be accused of shooting off yet another set of rigged up figures on climate change. In case, you’ve missed this – even global warming has had its unfair share of contradictions, around the world. But then if you are Indian today and doing well in A-broad, and it so happened that you were Rajendra Pachauri, the UN’s bureaucrat with a bee in his bonnet, you can be accused of anything especially if the accuser is a Brit leading newspaper and is called the ‘The Telegraph’. What you don’t know is that it rained in somebody else’s pocket (or many pockets for that matter) like rain water gushing through storm water drains. You could say, the rainfall was straight from the Mint for those with pockets like funnels, wide and channeled directly into some bank account. Either that or the mountains of mining rejects are getting the better of all the government’s feeble attempts to keep Bicholim from going under. My point being, then why waste money if the problem cannot be solved. It happened in Bicholim where Rs 8.84 crores was spent to desilt the Bicholim river which again this year took its wrath out on the residents of Bicholim town especially the Bandirwada and Gaonkarwada areas. Undertaken by the Water Resources Department, the flood control project was supposed to have been accomplished in three ways. 1. Improvement of waterway to Bicholim river from Kudchire to L.I.S Scheme, Vathadev –tendered to Pan Constructions. 2. Improvement to waterways from L.I.S Scheme to Dhabdhaba – tendered to Noorudheen Construction Pvt. Ltd. 3. Improvement of waterways from Dhabdhaba to Bagwada Pilgao – tendered to Apollo Engineers & Contractors Pvt. Ltd.

Diamonds Are Forever

Is a group of retired government babus trying to emulate Sachin Tendulkar who is never going to retire since he can pick and choose where to play? Or is it that a cabinet-full of selectors just want them to bat on, and on. The Chief Minister Digambar Kamat hired RA Verlekar as his officer on special duty. His age as you read this is 67 years and eleven months to be precise. His under secretary, Amrut Gaonkar is 64 years and ten months. He hired Jagdish Kalangutkar as section officer. His age as you read this is 60 years and four months, but that could be considered younger. Eight of his ministers all have OSD’s (doesn’t that sound like some kind of James Bond adaptation) over the age of sixty years. Licence to Kill or not, Joaquim Alemao’s Man Friday is 68 years and two months old. More power to their guns, but what I don’t understand is the government continuing to pay them a hefty pension because pension deductions are being made from their monthly salaries. BTW, Mickey Pacheco and his Man Friday split after many years of Bonding together. Turned out as Mickey says that while he was manning the cash counters, his Man Friday was on special duty secret assignments of the asset accumulation kind. There is a guestimated Rs 3-5 crore missing from the cash till and none of that I am told went overseas if you get my drift. It’s all here, in Goa, in hard real estate. What was that you said about two sides of the same coin?


Dr. No(Goan)

No silly, this has nothing to do with the Commissioner for NRI Affairs Eduardo Faleiro’s, project (the third edition) of bringing well-heeled Goans settled abroad on a holiday to Goa this November-December. This is about non-Goans employed as doctors in the Goa Medical College (GMC). Call it a limited edition. You thought doctors (lawyers too) was about the only career Goans choose and become. You were right. So, explain this then. How the GMC employed 66 non-Goan doctors till July 2010 and counting. In 2008 it hired 14 doctors. In the two months May-June, 2009 GMC hired 19 (of the 66) doctors and two more in December 2009. In 2010 five doctors were hired. The Goa Dental College & Hospital has 13 non-Goan doctors on its rolls. So, now we don’t have dentists too. You wish those Goan Diaspora holidaying here will get their teeth into this? I do too. The Goa College of Pharmacy has two. They were hired in 2009 and 2010 as lecturers. The Institute of Psychiatry & Human Behaviour rehired two clinical pathologists after they retired in 2005.

For Your Eyes Only

The Goa Barge Owners Association (GBOA) president Atul Jadav is going around telling any newspaper that listens that Goa is in dire need of a maritime industrial estate. Inevitably, the case of the Dubai Maritime City was cited as evidence without the corollary of course, that abroad there is definite transparency and definitive law. It pissed off the Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira who called up Jadav. Thing is GBOA wants the government to acquire five lakh sq mts at Bhoma near the Cumbarjua canal. Blunder 1. He was cocksure that the new environment would be protected but agreed the present repair yards are polluting. Blunder 2. Is there a plan here because we have elected MLAs (four) who are barge owners among other business interests they have. Barge owners have themselves told me in the past that the playing field is getting crowded by the entry of outsiders with black money to burn. The barge business gives a huge opportunity. They complain about the China market cooling down. When business has been bad they simply took their barges to ports in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and even faraway Andhra Pradesh. In fact the barge business has evolved over decades from WWII Land Craft Vessels converted into barges to jumboization of barges in the 80’s, cutting them into halves and extending their size. To the huge 2,000-3,000 tonners of now. But the sheen is wearing off. There aren’t any big fleet owners to buy the 100 size 4,000 sq. mt plots envisaged in the maritime industrial estate.


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