Lion Roars

Football Politics

2010-12-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

Goan football’s repulsive side

There is an obnoxious side to Goan football, the most popular game on the planet. This story begins with Churchill Alemao wanting to be president of the Goa Football Association for the term 2010-14. One obstacle he faced was the fact that his brother Joaquim Alemao was the sitting president. How? I’ll explain that in time. Perhaps like Aleixo Sequeira (MLA, Loutolim) he wanted to be elected unopposed.

Although Salcete was the largest voting constituency, he also needed the backing of football clubs in Bardez, Ilhas and Mormugao, to get elected unopposed.
Ironically, real elections to the GFA had resumed in 2007 after a long lull when Churchill’s brother Joaquim won, but his panel didn’t. Earlier, All-India Football Federation’s (AIFF) secretary, Alberto Colaco merely grouped together Joaquim Alemao, Shivanand Salgaocar, and Srinivas Dempo, arrogating to himself the
right of picking the GFA president. In other words they selected, never elected, their surrogate. Result: there was never an election since Savio Messias challenged Vilas Sardessai in 1992, and the thumb rule applied to the yes-men in the GFA’s committee as well.

Lousy legacy

But J. Alemao was leaving behind a weak legacy that his brother Churchill could not afford to inherit. Goa’s soccer clubs, particularly from Bardez were unrelenting over his broken promise to give each club Rs 50,000, which they claimed he had promised in return for votes in 2007. And that is because J. Alemao, the Urban Development Minister failed to get the Sports Ministry which lords over the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) which was supposed to bankroll his blatant buyoff.

Vengeance is mine

The clubs intended to hit back. They picked their moment when Churchill Alemao held a meeting of Bardez clubs at the Green Park hotel (near the Mapusa by-pass road) in August. There are 40-odd Bardez clubs (42, I think). Typically, Churchill brought along some club representatives (Dionisio Sardinha, John Dias, Lavino Rebello among them) from Salcette and declared in his inimitable style that he would only file his nomination if all the clubs in Goa agreed to elect him unopposed. “The clubs want me to be president. I must be voted unopposed.”

But a stunned Churchill got only rebuttals. “Where is your brother? Where is the Rs 50,000 he promised? What will you promise this time?” The political playfield was suddenly a different ball game. Here was the rough and tumble of a football game. It got more aggressive. “What have you done for football? Why are you Minister for PWD and not Minister for Sports? 'What happened to the promised lighting at Fatorda?' "Why hasn’t Panjim got a ground yet?”

The meeting ended with some club representatives walking out in protest. Churchill Alemao realized he had been shown the red card. The defense against him was impenetrable; therefore he decided not to contest despite his great ambition to become president. The Fatorda stadium lighting project valued at nearly Rs 6 cr is stuck with Churchill Alemao, in his capacity as PWD Minister. Specialists in the business say it can be done for less than one sixth of that amount.

The Duler stadium floodlight projects officially promoted by J. Alemao is de facto obstructed by him as the Urban Planning Minister (the project is to be implemented by the Mapusa Municipality which is under his ministry).

Dark horse

This is when the Colaco group panicked and pushed forward the candidature of Srinivas Dempo, always reluctant to become president, and content with playing a supporting role. With Colaco due to retire on September 30, 2010 as the AIFF’s Delhi-based paid general secretary, he would have to be benched on his return to Goa. But he could be made the new GFA general secretary. With the incumbent,
Messias, due to retire on October 25, 2010, the post was being transformed from that of honorary to professional. It was to be a paid job and Colaco’s AIFF experience was the end result of a well-thought out tactical plan.

The new term is for 2010-2014. It was a shoe-in – a winner all the way, because Colaco intended to be the force behind Dempo, the reluctant GFA office bearer. Dempo was elected, or rather, selected member of the GFA twice, was VP for four years, but the only GFA meeting he ever attended was on September 15, 2010.

Rumours had it that he and four other GFA members including J. Alemao would be disqualified for failing to attend four consecutive executive committee meetings. Under ordinary circumstances they ought to have been disqualified a long time ago. The issue was raised in fact at the last general body but J. Alemao’s limp apology was that his ministerial and political duties took preference over GFA.

Possession game

Except for 2007 when true elections were held, the group marshaled by Colaco has always kept possession of the ball so to speak – to the extent of forming a panel to contest. This is in direct conflict with the GFA constitution which says a president must be elected in his individual capacity. Confident that J. Alemao would contest again, Messias filed his nomination papers. So did Peter Vaz.

In 2007 J. Alemao asked Vaz to support his candidature because the president’s post is as per convention rotated between Goa’s four big clubs. The contest suddenly got rougher. Messias has had turf battles with both Colaco and J. Alemao but not with Vaz. But J. Alemao’s broken promise was like an own goal, it eliminated both brothers from the contest.

Messias knew he couldn’t win and would only damage Vaz’ chances. So, they are believed to have come to an understanding. Messias would withdraw his nomination, but as he would be left with nothing, he filed his papers for the post of member, Mormugao zone. The zone had three candidates for three posts available. It was game on here too.

At this point Churchill Alemao began scheming as only he can. Wary of how clubs voted in 2007, when Joaquim Alemao was voted in but not his panel. The buzz in the clubs was that he ordered clubs loyal to him to carry their mobiles in and photograph their ticked ballot papers as proof. I am not making this up but the villain in the piece all along was Chief Minister Digambar Kamat who kept wheedling with the key players in government like a good captain would.

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Consultancy, the money-spinner

2010-10-20T05:51:00.000-07:00

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

Only in Goa

2010-10-16T05:14:00.001-07:00

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.

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Goascam

2010-10-13T05:30:00.000-07:00

Marketing of a scam

This is how it’s done in scamgoa.com. First get the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) to build something as big as is possible, like the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) market. For a size guestimate, look at the Ravindra Bhavan being built on the Verna-Dabolim bypass which you might have easily, as you passed by, thought was an indoor stadium. It’s so large, it literally breaks the skyline as you drive by. The GSIDC comes under the Minister for Urban Development Joaquim Alemao, so nothing goes suburban, if you get my drift. Everything stays in-house and nobody knows nothing, though we’ll get to that one day. When that happens, put it down as the mother of all scams.

For now we are concerned with scam No. 1 which began when the CCP’s councilors began to take “operational control” of the market complex. Now if you want a career as a thieving scoundrel then take note of the words ‘operational control’ because my friend, it will help you one day. Although I think quite a few Goan families practice it to the hilt. And just in case you pretend not to know, I am talking about yes, division of family property. Point is, it appears till date that no official allotment of the hundreds of shops and stalls was done from the first phase in 2003 till now. It’s possible that some councilors succeeded in ‘allotting’ some shops either to themselves or to their relatives. For the record, 37 shops with double height were built in phase I on the ground floor. Seventy-seven shops with single height were built on the ground floor in phase II, 446 platform spaces were built on the ground floor and 344 stalls built on the first floor. They are all occupied, yet no official allotment has been made! The scam is being investigated since July 2010 and the results if properly investigated by the CCP Commissioner should make Fox Crime (the channel) look amateur. Problem is, so far the CCP has come out with two reports, dated March 3 and July 9, 2010.

Mayoral Pleasure

Between July-August 2003, 52 ‘persons’ are said to have illegally occupied shops when Sanjit Rodrigues was the Commissioner and Ashok Naik the Mayor (May 4, 2003-July 17, 2004). They simply walked in and took over 37 shops of double height each with a carpet area of 18 sq.mt, and 15 other smaller-sized shops. Nobody knows how, but it happened despite GSIDC having a detailed official record of the occupants prior to the demolition (of the old market) matched with the shops/stalls they were to be allotted. The CCP has no record either of rents fixed or collected. It happens in Goa and happened again after phase II was completed and inaugurated in January 2007. This time around (between June 20, 2006-January 21, 2007) when Daulat Hawaldar was the Commissioner and Tony Rodrigues the Mayor, 62 shops were occupied. The CCP called it “occupational control”. A further 446 platform spaces were occupied by what the CCP described in its report as “different types of vendors.” The second CCP report said “the official roll was missing and the Mayor and a few councilors monitored shifting of the vendors and allotment of spaces.” It added: “Again, no record is available on the shifting of these vendors in the 2nd phase”. Now, try doing this anywhere in Goa, unless of course you are a migrant especially in Sancoale or chimbel, and believe me you will get your butt hauled to court.

Vendor’s rock

While India’s elite walk miles to get rid of their bulbous bellies, the poor walk miles just to get food. And so it is. At Panjim’s market, vendors’ rock and roll as happened again in January 2008, this time when Sanjiv Gadkar was the Commissioner or should I say Commissar and Tony Rodrigues continued to be the Mayor. This time, 344 stalls were ‘occupied’ and the report said, “this occupation took place, sans administrative intervention, directly under the supervision of the Mayor and some councilors”. Seriously, now at least do you see what I meant by ‘occupational control’. I was only trying to help. The report added: “In the light of what is stated, it will be improper for the present Commissioner (Elvis Gomes) to go into the roles of the above named, and if desired, the government may initiate a proper inquiry to be conducted by an independent authority to go into the entire issue”. A classic example of obfuscation made only in Goa and is tax free.

So, the next time you shop at the market, bargain like hell. Remember, the man/woman conning you has not paid rent, does not have a lease agreement and is using hardware (to make money) paid for by you. OK, so you need a booster shot? It could even ban you from the Commonwealth Games, if it takes place that is, and if you are suddenly accosted with a drug test. This is it. Huge bills amounting to Rs 12,06,952 and Rs 62,20,833 towards unpaid water and electricity consumption have piled up and continue climbing up as are the prices of the vegetables you are buying. Ditto for maintenance and repair costs. In fact bargain real hard on tomatoes especially, they contain the maximium (and cheapest in the market) antioxidants (glutathione) you need to clean up your insides from the heartburn of being a tax payer in Goa. There’s tea of course, but use that to calm your nerves. But again, you are Goan, nothing will have an effect on you. What a life!

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Polluters do not pay

2010-09-19T21:37:00.000-07:00

Sheriff of Nottingham

Phew, I got tired of the number crunching the last two weeks, so I am going to give us all a respite. I’m just yanking your chain. Sorry, doesn’t happen that way by a long shot. But you know what, when you all wake up from your deep-seated sleep, then maybe we can at least stop the politician at the door, if not shut the door on him. Till then here’s another adrenalin rush. The Sheriff of Nottingham otherwise known as Filipe Neri Rodrigues, the Forest Minister. called another meeting of the Goa State Board for Wildlife that has now come to be virtually an annual affair. The August 25 meet, it turned out, was destined to miss out on crucial issues at hand. Last year, at a similar meet, a tiger enclosure for Bondla was shoved into the faces of all those who attended on the day of the meeting itself. This meet was concerned only with the Goa Forest Development’s intent to tie up with Southern River Adventures & Sports Pvt. Ltd. Now, anything that happens in Goa is through the back door, or through a window left ajar. Never the front door.

Pity the Madhei river

The people living in a 15 km stretch of river from Codal on the northern tributary of the Mhadei which joins the eastern tributary coming from Krishnapur and ending at Sonal, will if this plan is followed through, be the next recipients of a whole slew of irritants including roughnecks who will mix the effervescence of booze with the froth of white water rafting. That, of course in the name of tourism and who gives a crap what you and I think. This is how the Sheriff of Nottingham looks at it, and I quote the actual minutes of the meet: “This stretch of river offers stunning scenery, many exciting rapids (approx. 30) and is perhaps the most challenging than any other rafting section in South India. As in Dandeli, the Mhadei section runs through the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, though at no point of time will forest be touched enroute to any place. It is only the waters which will be used with both the start (Codal-Derodem bridge) and finish point (Sonal) out of the sanctuary limits.” They said that of the sand dunes, remember; of the beaches, of public access to beaches, of the River Princess (the salvage, that is), of IFFI (International Film Festival of India), of SEZs (Special Economic Zones), of, of ……..; all those were pushed through, delete that, bulldozed over you because they were supposed to be good for you. Look what happened. No dunes, 5-star hotels where depleting beaches stood, an iffy IFFI, a stranded Princess and SEZs entangled in lawsuits.

Will Dudhsagar fall?

A board member Tribolo D’Souza raised the issue again of freeing the limit on the number (98) of vehicles permitted to take tourists to Dudhsagar falls. I am told he does this as ritualistically as the monsoons falling over the Western Ghats. The limit was rightly imposed to protect the area which is part of the Bhagwan Mahavir National Park. Now, apart from being a pal of a pal of the Sheriff of Nottingham, D’Souza owns taxis and has a restaurant there. What more can I say? In fact, the entire approach to the 4/6 laning of NH4A which was on the agenda, was how should I say, as wanting as the Board’s will to protect wildlife.

The ‘Kala’ of money

This government has a compulsive obsession with building Ravindra Bhavans and Kala Bhavans. Its stated policy is that these edifices are built when people want them, only then. Since you and I have not gone stark raving mad yet despite all that happens around us, we know that’s not true. And culture vultures we are not. The things we want, we don’t get, garbage clearance being just one in a growing list of To Do’s. For many senior citizens these wishes must have gone into their Bucket List. The government had approved Ravindra Bhavans/mini Kala Bhavans for Sanquelim, Mormugao, Pernem, Mapusa, Canacona and Valpoi. Which means your wish list won’t fructify even into the next decade. Because all your tax bucks are poured like concrete into making Goa a haven for bhavans. The score so far; the Ravindra Bhavan at Curchorem, the Rajiv Gandhi Kala Mandir at Ponda and the Ravindra Bhavan at Margao have been constructed. The Ravindra Bhavan at Sanquelim and the Ravindra Bhavan at Baina in Vasco da Gama and the Ravindra Bhavan on the Verna-Dabolim bypass are under construction.

…And it’s Green

The cost of the newly installed sound system at the Ravindra Bhavan in Margao is believe it or not Rs 54,95,692. With that money, the entire village you live in could have been beautified for posterity. Bad news, I know. It gets worse. The amount spent on the old sound system was Rs 24,06,325. That’s Rs 79,02,017 only to make loud sounds. It cost you and I Rs 38,52,800 to replace the chairs. The total cost on capital expenditure incurred till this year was Rs 25,63,74,861. The cost of maintenance incurred since its inauguration was Rs 26,93,537. And I am told you could get your doctorate if you investigated the repairs that have been carried out to the south west walls and the ceiling of the foyer area of the main building. When last heard of, the PWD was asked to recover the cost of the work from the contractor. Add that to your thesis. Yes, it’s that same PWD that can’t get its contractors to build decent roads. Finally, to add insult to your injury be advised that the Margao bhavan was partly constructed on Communidade land that was acquired by the government probably for peanuts. And the winner is the Chief Minister who is also the Minister for Art & Culture, Digambar Kamat.

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Wining and Dining Faleiro-style

2010-09-12T04:28:00.000-07:00

The chosen ones

Last week you read how Rs 3,31,47,262 was spent on the shenanigans of the NRI Commissioner Eduardo Faleiro. When I said partying at conventions, I was serious, very serious. Here’s how some of that money was spent. A symposium on NRIs and family values held at the Goa International Centre, Dona Paula in Panjim on July 22, 2006 cost Rs 2,89,418. A huge sum of Rs 39,31,470 was spent on the Global Goans Convention 2007 held at the Cidade de Goa (yes, the chosen one) on January 3-5, 2007. Rs 7,23,421 was blown up on the 7th Know India programme for Diaspora youth on September 2-15, 2007. No venue was specified in the RTI data. A conference on Indian expats in the Gulf held at Hotel Mandovi, Panjim on March 29, 2008 cost Rs 1,98,308. A sum of Rs 3,88,740 was spent on a conference on building bridges with Africa on July 12, 2008 at the Cidade de Goa. The 1st Know Goa programme for Goan diaspora youth held jointly in Goa and Delhi on November 30 and December 14 of 2008 cost you Rs 13,47,689. I can’t begin to tell you how many times these well-heeled Goan youth must have holidayed in Goa prior to this extravaganza, and now we give them a paid holiday in Goa and one to Delhi just for good measure. Then there was Faleiro’s magnum opus: a conference on migration trends and the Goa Migration Study 2008 at the Goa International Centre held on October 9, 2009. Cost: Rs 1,66,180. Also, if you recall from last Sunday, the study cost Rs 20L, and Faleiro also flew to Kerala at a cost Rs 1,39,781 for the purpose.

More tears for tax-payers

Next he organized a 2nd Know Goa programme in Goa and Delhi from November 30-December 14, 2008 an extravaganza that cost you Rs 14,99,877. Makes you want to pull out your hair. Finally, a conference called ‘Goans in Europe and Europeans in Goa: Cultural experiences and identity’ at Hotel Nova Goa, Panjim on December 11, 2009 that cost Rs 52,949. Yes, I know that word identity again, and all that money blown on a Lost Cause. Hollywood makes sequels, Faleiro makes re-runs of lost causes or as some would say lost cause found again. In the end, the lost cause really was the Rs 85,98,052 spent on partying at conventions. And when they were not carousing, they were flying.

The joy(stick) of flying

Between Faleiro, VAdm John D’Silva (retd), Chairman of the Overseas Employment Agency of Goa, and U.D Kamat, the Director for NRI Affairs, they spent Rs 4,22,781 on flying within the country in 2009-10. Faleiro did that Kerala trip that cost Rs 1,39,781 on May 10-17, 2009. He flew to Bangalore on July 1-8 – Rs 40,746, to Delhi on August 2-8 - Rs 59,247, to Delhi on October 20-24 - Rs 1,22,715 and to Bangalore again on January 25-31, 2010 - Rs 9,277. It’s been questioned here before and needs to be posed again. How on earth do Goa’s politicians pay well over Rs 1L for a single (allegedly) ticket? D’Silva flew to Delhi on July 22-25, 2009 – Rs 10,651, to Bangalore and Delhi on August 23-30 – Rs 9,118 and to Delhi on September 7-10, 2009 – Rs 23,248. Kamat flew once, to Hyderabad, on July 25-27 – Rs 7,998. If you see the humour in it, Faleiro’s flying abroad in fact could entitle him to become a non-resident Goan himself. Well, at least, a BRG (barely resident Goan).

Run(away) costs

In 2008-09 Rs 8,14,833 of your tax bucks was spent on them flying within the country. You could also call it run(away) costs of flying and the pun is hugely intended. Faleiro flew to Delhi on April 24-26, 2008 - Rs 38,885, to Delhi, Vishakapatnam and Hyderabad on June 22-July 6 – Rs 62,333, to Delhi on August 20-27 – Rs 46,985, to Delhi on September 20-23 – at a huge cost of Rs 99,156, to Delhi again on October 19-23 – at a massive, massive cost of Rs 1,46,557, to Delhi on October 28-November 1 – Rs 55,397, to Mumbai on November 11-17 – Rs 25,070, to Delhi on March 1-6, 2009 – again incurring a massive Rs 1,60,997. The question is why did Faleiro spend Rs 6,35,680 flying mostly between April-November of 2008 to destinations one can safely assume had little or nothing to do with his job (officially at least) at hand. Incidentally, both D’Silva and Kamat also did their bit of flying --to the same destinations. So were they shadowing Faleiro or simply duplicating his work? D’Silva flew to Delhi (2), Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram, while Kamat flew to Delhi (5), Hyderabad and Mumbai. In 2007-08 the trio spent Rs 5,33,805, Faleiro doing the bulk of the costlier flying once again. Like his Rs 1,06,789 flight to Delhi on October 21-27, 2007, another to Mumbai-Vishakhapatnam-Hyderabad-Mumbai on July 2-8, 2007 – Rs 47,194 and another to Mumbai on January 3-6, 2008 - Rs 53,472. D’Silva flew Bangalore-Hyderabad-Chennai on April 17-20, 2007 – Rs 41,388. In all they flew 19 times, the same as the year earlier. In 2006-07 they flew 15 times at a cost to you of Rs 3,42,649, D’Silva making a Rs 31,780 flight to Bangalore and Thiruvananthapuram, a destination that also attracted Kamat.

Report on the report

I know you are curious, so here are the facts. The cost of the Goa Migration Study 2008 was Rs 20L, while the cost of flying to Thiruvananthapuram where the study was invented was Rs 2,03,522. If you like to see it, it’s available at the office of the Commissioner for NRI Affairs at the Porvorim Secretariat. But don’t bother, you won’t find anything you already don’t know.

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Faleiro Flying Files

2010-09-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

Nature of the beast -Public Office

Who can blame you, if after you read this you want to avoid the taxman for eternity? In other words like the statutory warning that says smoking could be injurious to your health, reading this is. Certainly don’t show it to your kids, they may want to become politicians. Aires Rodrigues, that other pain in the butt for many, says Rs 3,31,47,262, that is, 3 crores 31 lakh 47 thousand 262 rupees of your tax bucks was spent on NRI Commissioner Eduardo Faleiro and on his often desolate office in the Secretariat at Porvorim from February 23, 2006 till June this year. As you will see, considerable amounts of it were spent combusting aviation fuel, precisely Rs 28,93,260, only on travels abroad sometimes along with his two buddies U.D Kamat, the Director, NRI Affairs and Vice Adm. John D’Silva (retd), Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa (OEAG), a post that Faleiro created as an extension of the gravy train. Their travels within India cost you Rs 13,53,342 in tax bucks. Total: Rs 42,46,602. Airline counters must love the sight of him in these days of crippling aviation fuel costs and price wars. So does the Kerala-based Centre for Development Studies (CDS) which was paid Rs 20L to do that Goa Migration Study 2008 which I am positive if you googled, you could learn more about the subject. Or, simply choose to ask any one of the many Goan associations abroad which I can vouch will give you authentic answers. Because, talking migration and identity loss has a richly stimulating effect on quite a few Goans these days. Which is perhaps what Faleiro had in mind to be fair to him, but he got his modus operandi all wrong.

Praise the Lord for tax money

Hallelujah. You can almost hear Faleiro saying that. But shed tears for the tax-payer. I have not seen the report but I wonder how CDS could have researched; 1) The magnitudes and dimensions of migration from Goa and return migration to Goa; 2) Assess annual flow and estimation of remittances from Goan emigrants; 3) Study socio-economic effect of migration on households; 4) Understand rehabilitation issues of return emigrants; within a short span of time. Because the 2008 report was released (released, not handed over to Faleiro) on June 2, 2009. Bingo, Faleiro did make an expensive trip to Kerala on May 10-17, 2009 that cost you Rs 1,39,781 which I know makes you wonder because for that price you could fly around the world. The researchers would have had to run through entire Goa to research any one of the parameters, leave alone all three in so short a time. In fact, it would be interesting to evaluate the flow of remittances if at all the researchers got within even an arm’s length of the figures. I doubt if the Reserve Bank of India has a ballpark figure considering the complexities involved and types (including destinations from) of remittances. Who approved the research methodology? Say a short prayer for Goa University which has at least some Goans and as a result could have done a better job. At least GU would have been answerable to the Goan tax-payer.
During that time Feb 2006-June 2010 Faleiro’s rent-free NRI office cost you Rs 67,63,055 on salaries. He gave out grant-in-aid of Rs 30L, that is Rs 20L in 2007-08, Rs 5L each in 2008-09 and 2009-10. Advertising his feats cost Rs 17,72,223. Professional services cost Rs 1,65,717. Other charges, whatever that is, took up Rs 1,60,37,914, I kid you not. Bottomline, while his flying cost Rs 42,46,602, office expenses cost Rs 2,89,00,660. What did it achieve? Positively nothing, apart from the partying at conventions abroad, that is.

Green grass on the other side

If you think there must have been some positive gains from all that expenditure, think again. After all Churchill Alemao, who knows best what is good for south Goa (and now Karwar too) did say all those mega housing projects provide jobs to Goans as security guards. Then believe this, because under the head achievements, this is what the Under Secretary, Home Department, Foreigner’s & Citizenship Division, has to say: 1) “The OEAG has imparted skill up-gradation and foreign orientation”. 2) On the migration study: “Goa is the second State after Kerala to have done a scientific migration study”. 3) “Goa Cards have been issued to nearly 500 Goan expatriates so far on request on payment of Rs 250. Holders get faster access and better attention from government offices and the benefits include concessions by government undertakings, private hospitals, and hotels.” 4) The Goa Buildings (Lease, Rent and Eviction) Control Act, 1968 was amended to protect the property rights of NRIs. 5) A website globalgoans.org.in was hosted. 6) A “well represented” state level committee reportedly solves grievances of non-resident Goans and has “taken up follow-up action on various issues with the departments concerned and resolved several issues to the satisfaction of affected NRGs.” The under-secretary’s five-page report however did not give a stitch of evidence to support any of the ‘achievements’ of the Commissioner for NRI Affairs. 7) “A Goa scholarships programme for Diaspora children was established”. 8) “My Village scheme for expatriates keen to participate in developing their villages and towns in Goa was established.” There are more ‘achievement’ claims in the report like expediting compensation provided by the United Nations Claims Commission for Kuwaiti war victims which would otherwise have lapsed. But you would like to see the list, wouldn’t you? I would too, thank you. In fact, do check the website and make your own informed judgement.

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Driving You Crazy

2010-09-12T04:10:00.000-07:00

Of Mad Men and Crazy Women on the Roads

Last week I asked why the traffic police ever bothered to apologise for the mayhem on the roads. For once I find myself defending them because frankly, theirs is a lost cause. We have many, many madmen and a few crazy women too on the roads. The traffic police identified 60 accident prone zones in the north and 40 in the south, narrowing down the main causes to “rash and negligent driving, over speeding, dangerous overtaking, lane cutting, drunken driving, fault of pedestrians, bad roads, mechanical defects, and stray cattle.” I find five categories missing here; the PWD, the bully government driver, the insensitive taxi driver and the trigger happy truck/utility van driver, 98 percent of whom are migrants who pop in an out of the many cheap bars at regular intervals in the course of work, and/or rich kids whose parents are walking ATMs. Ah, that brings me to Goa’s ubiquitous bars. Somehow this Goan edifice does not figure in the list. Shouldn’t it? Look at the many cars parked outside favourite watering holes on just the one highway itself. In fact rather than the row over late night drinking hours, it should have been about strict closure after 2pm. But that doesn’t happen, so at Gene bar opposite the Goa Institute of Management in Ribandar, for example, no one quits before 4pm which is when the bar shuts down for the afternoon. This is also where quite a few tourists have literally one for the road before driving off to Karnataka! Yet in 2009 ‘under the influence of drinking’ made up a miserly Rs 1,16,200 of the Rs 3,28,25,050 collected as fines by the traffic police. And I almost forgot, the most dangerous of all causes, your friendly neighbourhood MLA who gets hot lined immediately a voter is caught and makes the case go away. Cars with tinted glasses were fined Rs 7,27,700. Improper number plates produced Rs 8,57,900 and then I begin to wonder, is the traffic cop really blameless?

Too Fast Too Furious

That would be the best way to describe many drivers in Goa and yet two-wheel riders collectively paid Rs 75,83,900 for not wearing helmets and drivers without seat belts paid a collective Rs 20,05,700. Dangerous parking, whatever that means earned fines of Rs 18,55,600 while drivers using a mobile while driving paid Rs 8,37,100 in fines. Which you would think would actually run into several crores considering the only ones who don’t mobile-talk and drive are bus drivers simply because they are in such a tearing hurry to get from point A to B, they have no time for chatter. Though, if their vehicles were fitted with power steering, I wonder! Where am I going with this? Apart from those certified mad men on the roads, I am not too sure the traffic police are entirely or even partially blameless.

Right time, right place cops

Rash and negligent drivers paid a fine of Rs 36,71,050 of the total of Rs 3,28,25,050. Add Rs 16,00,100 for over speeding to that and it looks too easy for the traffic police. Look again at all the categories above. It is obvious Goa’s drivers (described here) are just easy prey because they don’t care about getting caught. All that the traffic police have to do is wait for the inevitable to happen, like football strikers, many of whom earn their keep by simply poaching which means to be at the right place, at the right time. Then it’s a matter of a simple tap in. Here’s the evidence. No entry was fined a huge, huge Rs 26,70,450 while wrong turning was fined Rs 2,41,200. More proof. The combination of drinking and driving (Rs 1,16,200), rash and negligent driving (Rs 36,71,050) and over speeding (Rs 16,00,100) toted up to Rs 53,87,350 of the total fines of Rs 3,28,25,050.

Police predators

The police waiting at the right place, at the right time earned them a total of Rs 29,11,650 in fines paid by foolhardy drivers (categories: wrong turn and no entry). Add that figure to fines of Rs 17,19,400 paid by drivers dumb enough to drive without side mirrors, you have a figure of Rs 46,31,050. And remember, this figure has nothing to do with tinted glasses fines (Rs 7,27,700) , improper number plates (Rs 8,57,900), no helmets (Rs 75,83,900), no seat belts (Rs 20,05,700), and dangerous parking (Rs 18,55,600), all of which add up to Rs 1,76,61,850 and does not include that totally uncaring group of drivers driving while using mobiles (Rs 8,37,100). So, it’s really about dumbos dying to get caught and not about the traffic police trying to make our roads safe. There were huge fines paid for driving without tarpaulin Rs 8,79,800, without uniform Rs 6,22,000, violating traffic signals Rs 4,09,000, none of which helped to make our roads safer.

Easy meat

How else would you describe drivers without number plates who contrived to pay Rs 1,73,750 in fines. Lane cutting Rs 2,11,600. Really now, who on Gods’ earth does not know which are the fave spots of the traffic police? A few seconds past the spots they lurk in and you can knock yourself out literally cutting lanes. But no, you can’t wait, can you? Ditto for overtaking Rs 5,97,900. This is a tough one. Driving without proper lights Rs 4,53,450. “Allowing unlicensed to drive” Rs 1,43,050. Another tough one, but if it means allowing your kid to drive, seriously, how dumb can you get? Just pick any lonely village road where you will never find a cop of any kind!

(feedback lionroars.goa@gmail.com, 9822152164)

Goa Broke?

2010-08-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

Fishy fiscal propriety

Is Goa going broke? If the answer is no, it could well be getting there. A former development commissioner now back in Delhi once told me the direction in which the Digambar Kamat government was heading, it would hit financial road’s end sooner than later weighed down as it is by a hefty pension bill of an army of retired workers, not to mention the cost of government workers currently occupying table space. As on December 31, 2009 your government’s market borrowings were Rs 229880.23 (in lakhs) up from Rs 163111.72 the previous year. In other words, it borrowed Rs 66768.51 more from the market within the space of just 12 months. This kind of figure does not exactly spell fiscal prudence especially in a state where VAT collection is virtually nonexistent in major areas of the tourism and mining industries. How many restaurants and how many in ancillary services to the mining industry you know, give you a proper tax added on bill even if you ask for one. But I wager you also have an endless list of these and other traders that are plainly affronted if you ask for a bill, a proper one that is, not a hand written bit of notepad paper. By the way, market borrowing sources are those other than the central government and institutions that lend like LIC, NABARD, NCDC, REC, HUDCO and PFC.

The Beginning

At the end of 2007, its market borrowings were Rs 122735.8. In 2006 end it was Rs 100942.89. In 2005 it was Rs 99443.01 and in 2004 end it was Rs 96121.31. Clearly from 2006 its financial management went awry and its borrowings took a frenzied pace. This stands out clearly in all its borrowings from other sources too. For example in 2004 its loan borrowings from the central government stood at Rs 234332.44. By 2009 it went up to Rs 334970.12, a hike of Rs 100637.68. It also borrowed from the six institutional lenders named above. To cut a long and worrying story short by end 2009 it had borrowed Rs 593201.26 up from Rs 346755.77 borrowed in 2004 end. While no Indian state can claim to be financially prudent, point is our MLA’s discuss monitoring of fish sold in the market in the Assembly instead of fiscal discipline.

Deep Blue Sea

It could get worse if the environmentally dangerous Panjim-Vasco Sea Link Project is undertaken considering the consultant Louis Berger Group alone was paid Rs 89 lakh. There’s something between the Congress and the deep sea because successive governments have paid a total of Rs 21.60 lakh towards the Oceanorium project which might needed a lot more oxygen before it begins to breathe, if ever. For the record, Rs 10.60 lakh was paid to the Transaction Advisor and Rs 11 lakh spent to build a compound wall around the project site which so far has seen only rain fall and nothing else. There’s the River Princess calamity. Then there’s also Greenfield Mopa airport project which for sheer lunacy must rank second only to that scam of the century, the Commonwealth Games. National Games 2011 did you say? Yes, there’s that too.

They protest too much

What is with traders and shop owners in Panjim? They protest too much. This time it’s the Municipal Market Tenants’ Association protestations against the Corporation of the City of Panjim’s (CCP) pay parking around the municipal market. In the past, traders have protested every citizen friendly decision of the police traffic cell and the CCP to decongest the crammed city which gets crammed by the building so to speak. It’s bursting at the seams and the buildings keep coming in a wave. Traders in Panjim have usurped public parking space, some of them using devious ways like placing hand carts in front of their shops. In fact I wonder why the traffic cell even bothers to defend itself for the mayhem on the roads but more on that on another day soon. It’s also okay to take over entire pavements. Herald pointed out sometime ago how Kamat Hotel in Panjim conveniently allowed panwallahs outside because it helped their almost entirely tourist clientele forcing locals to walk on the road. The Panjim traffic cell pointed out how shop owners parked their own vehicles on 18th June Road from morning till closing time occupying most of the parking space. There are more blatant examples of appropriation of parking spaces. Do us a favour please, cut the crap and put a zip on that lip of yours.

Here’s really why

This will shock you for their brazenness. The CCP has been left holding a water consumption bill of Rs 12,06,952 and an electricity bill of Rs 62,20,833 which traders in the municipal market have refused to pay. That’s a total of Rs 74,27,785 of money owed to CCP which desperately needs funds. There could be more owed by way of nonpayment of both rent and maintenance charges. Oh yes, these guys are in a league of their own and more. In fact there’s a huge scam waiting to be exposed of the CCP can complete the government-ordered investigation into the scams involving the market which the Goa Infrastructure Development Corporation built.

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The sell-out of Goa by its politicians

2010-08-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

Calling the kettle black

The Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) having its own way in Goa is nothing new. It’s because our politicians, unlike those in other States, just hate to protect anything that is Goan or can be identified as part of Goa. Only recently, the MPT became an exception for the ruling Congress government because frankly it went a tad too far. Remember all those advertisements establishing MPT’s territorial rights in Goa. What impudence! If that happened in Mumbai, Shiv Sena goons would have taken violent action against the source of the irritant. In the sedate South, the DMK in Tamil Nadu would have said “mind it” and that would be that. You doubt that? Google Chennai’s dailies of June 30 and you will see a report with a picture of (workers) of the Chennai Corporation taking over land encroached upon by a 5-star hotel owned by Apeejay Surendra Park Hotels Ltd. In Kochi, there would be no cause for concern in the first place. Malaylees don’t take BS from anyone, outsiders particularly. Kerala said ‘no 60m wide highways’. It ended there. Not Goa, our politicians don’t want to upset the apple cart, if you get my drift. They don’t even protect their own turf.

Expansionistic MPT

The MPT has a slew of expansionist projects, none of which augur well for Goa. If given a free hand to do what it wants, it will not only change the demography, it will change forever the horizon over Baina Bay and Vasco Bay and in future over Betul too. Driving the engine behind it will be the Union Shipping Minister GK Vasan, the MPT will only be a means to an end though it will partake of the cake. Its plans forced the Congress to warn the MPT that implementation of these will change the demography of Vasco da Gama. Coming from the Congress it sounded really funny because that is something the Congress achieved on its own through its inequitable industrial policies, etcetera. I guess it needed to issue a sound byte Goans love to hear. But, using it selectively, is adding insult to injury because WE THE PEOPLE have been saying it for three going on four decades! Or, by saying that, was the Congress reserving its sole right to change the demographics of Goa. Instead of the sound byte, it might begin by finding out what the MPT is doing/has done with a rather large acreage of land leased to it, which it has admitted it failed to monitor. The MPT is sitting pretty on 68 Ha under the dock area in Headland and slopes at Mormugao. In Baina, Vasco da Gama the MPT took on lease 17 Ha. Between 1971 and 1985 various governments allotted it nearly 52 Ha, while the MPT managed to “reclaim” nearly 25 Ha of land. It is possible the government isn’t earning a rupee from this. The government of 1981 leased 3.62 acres to Goa Shipyard Limited and it’s possible it may not have signed a deed agreement till now. For the record, the government of 2007 also leased 10,958 sq mt to GSL.

Lost in Translation

Between March last year and March 2010 all it had achieved was write a series of letters to all concerned in New Delhi, formed a Group of Ministers; but did not even succeed in getting old Portuguese documents translated/researched to put a finger on the touchy subject of jurisdiction and what was inherited and by whom from the Portuguese. In fact, ex-advocate general Carlos Ferreira excused himself from the research and was replaced by lawyer Jose E. Coelho Pereira who apparently also opted out because the ball appears to be back in Ferreira’s court. The GoM met thrice, on October 22, September 26, and October 22 of 2008. So much for the Congress’ concern about demographic change. At stake is about 1,000-1,500 Ha of land and nearly 2.5 km of waterfront land. In other words, it could hit you up to the west of Cortalim.

Joker in the pack

I don’t mean this in a funny way because as if it had an ace in hand, the government got the toothless Goa State Pollution Control Board to dash off yet another letter to the MPT - asking it to consider the cumulative impact of their projects, include these in the EIA/EMP study, hold a public hearing and submit hard copies of the proposed 4 mmtpa coal/coke handling port terminal at berth no. 11. The board also asked MPT to deposit Rs 5 lakh with it towards holding the public hearing. That’s right your concerned government didn’t want to spend Rs 5 lakh on this when it has spent crores on consultancy fees. Yes, it’s the same Pollution Board that hotels in Colva show the middle finger to. The letter was written in May, 2010. No guesses where the MPT put that letter. And oh, in a moment of pique, the GoM voted not to ask MPT for NOCs to conduct any activity on land the MPT claims is theirs. In other words, the GoM proved to be just as toothless and wimpish as the board!

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Party Time - III

2010-08-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Carte du jour

The Minister for Revenue Jose Philip entertained modestly (remember, his flying too was moderate compared to his compadres) between April 2009-February 2010, the only relevance here for you as a taxpayer is he entertained some unnamed officials on June 5 and on November 6 he entertained a group of again unnamed police officers and officials of the Mormugao Port Trust, and District Collectors at a total cost of Rs 25,488 at Hotel La Paz. He threw his latest bash (January 7, 2010) for an unnamed group of councillors, officials and ‘dignitaries’. The La Paz bill is awaited.

That goes too for the Minister for Home Ravi Naik who kept a low profile unlike his other headline grabbing. Naik threw a dinner for “guests” attending the India Internal Security Conclave 2009 at the Majorda Beach Resort on September 24, 2009. Cost: Rs 90,000. On November 1 he threw a dinner for Diwan Chand (currently Special Secretary, Home) at the Fort Aguada Beach Resort that cost a whopping Rs 1,23,851. And a dinner for IPS probationers visiting Goa at the same hotel that cost Rs 1,38,076 on November 16. For your information, IPS and IAS probationers routinely visit Goa just like every other man or woman who draws a Government of India salary. Which is great if you own a posh hotel, posh restaurant or posh cab, right? But, do we have to wine and dine them at taxpayers cost? Ravi Naik thinks so, because he was back (February 28, 2010) to entertaining, this time a group of 80 unnamed officials at the Hotel Marriott. Bill awaited.

Typically, the Minister for Tourism (now ex) Mickky Pacheco entertained a group of Khazakstan delegates at the Park Hyatt on October 7, 2009. Cost: Rs 66,393. Put that down as being for the glory and good of that other fatted cow, the tourism industry. Proof of the pudding! How about this? Manohar Azgaonkar, the Minister for Panchayat threw a bash at Hotel Marriott on September 9, 2009 for delegates attending the “workshop of Principal Secretaries in charge of Panchayati Raj in Indian States” and some unnamed “others”. Cost: Rs 65,189.

Host with the most

It truly does pay to be a big cheese on holiday in Goa. Though, sometimes any kind will do, thank you. You are guaranteed at least one freebie dinner, sometimes two and no proof of your credentials is required. It’s enough if you play the part. Here’s proof of that and of Digambar Kamat’s parties that cost more than Rs 2L. He threw a Rs 3,73,024 dinner on June 27, 2008 for the chairman and members of the 13th Finance Commission and 100 other allegedly big wheels (producers etc) of the South Asian film industry at the Cidade de Goa. How did two very disparate groups come together in Goa, you ask? Could it be the trouble-free access to your easily available tax bucks? Or, that the government tried to kill two birds with one stone or, a combination of both. Remarkably, the same day the Minister for Finance (now ex) Dayanand Narvekar was also dining the chairman and members of the 13th Finance Commission at the same Cidade de Goa. Cost: Rs 87,943. That’s a total of Rs 4,60,967, but two dinners, same invitees? Was the government trying to get around its own self-imposed cap on partying following a series of similar exposures in this same column some time ago?

Open House

Kamat threw a Rs 2,00,227 do for 100 unnamed revelers at the Park Hyatt on August 12, 2008. On October 4, 2008 he blew Rs 3,99,800 on an Id-Milan jamboree at his official residence in Panjim. Amazingly, that night he threw a second, this time, Rs 2,48,460 dinner for some doctors from Maharashtra and Goa on the cruise boat Princess de Goa. On January 24, 2009 he hosted of all people on this planet, delegates of the 57th National Town and Country Planners Congress. That’s right, the same guys who give you the most grief (after politicians) with all their skewed planning. The Rs 3,51,854 dinner was held at Cidade de Goa. A Rs 3,88,927 dinner for delegates of the 12th Conference on e-Governance on IT at Hotel Inn Resort on February 12, 2009. A Rs 2,08,388 dinner at the Cidade de Goa for Jaime Lerner, an expert on urban planning from Brazil. This time guests of the DD Kosambe Festival of Ideas were invited to the dinner proving my point. Exactly a year later, February 12,2010, Kamat would host another dinner (see Party Time -1, July 25) for participants of the same DD Kosambe festival of Ideas at the same venue. So, was Lerner just an excuse to dine these guys? Makes you wonder.

Money for nothing

What’s more, the government’s Protocol Department might have inadvertently added a new dimension to VVIP to mean Visiting Very Important Persons. It incurred independently an expenditure of Rs 29,83,639 on accommodation and food for VVIPs visiting Goa between April 2008 and February 2010.

COST OF THE PARTY

Vishwajeet Rane Rs 4,54,282

Ravi Naik Rs 3,51,927

Aleixo Sequeira Rs 1,31,017

Manohar Azagaonkar Rs 65,189

Miccky Pacheco Rs 66,393

Jose Philip Rs 25,488

TOTAL: Rs 35,35,400

April 2008-March 2009: Rs 36,64,744

TOTAL: Rs 72,00,144

Protocol Department Rs 29,83,639

GRAND TOTAL: Rs 1,01,83,783!

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Party Time - II

2010-08-02T04:08:00.000-07:00

Food for thought

Chief Minister Digambar Kamat spent Rs 22,07,748 entertaining between April 2009-February 2010. It was the turn next of Vishwajeet Rane, the Health Minister. But above the aroma of food, is a certain rot that could become like a resident rot (like decaying wood in your window frame) or like the fragile River Princess that will eventually break into two and become extinct only when its time is up to go to rack and ruin. Not a day before. Kind of dust to dust thing. I am talking about seven floating casinos and the pleasure boats dumping garbage in the Mandovi. In a few days time, August 4 exactly, the Bombay High Court (the only institution that works in Goa for the aam aadmi, the rest are all bakwas) will hear the writ petition challenging their expulsion from the Mandovi to outer anchorage at Aguada Bay. It’s funny but the official NOC of six (Pride of Goa, Arabian Sea King, The Leela, Casino Royale, San Domino, Caravela) expired during different months in 2009. The NOC of the Boa Sorte expires on August 23, that’s in three weeks. From this point of view, they are plying their trade illegally. But as this case could drag on for years, a status quo is perhaps what the owners want. Because they can use that as a reprieve and it will be business as usual for all. The government won’t win the case either because it will go out on a limb to lose it.

Here’s a thought. The insurance policies of six of the casinos expire this year. The policy on the Pride of Goa expires on May 15, 2011. I dunno, but I think the government could write to the insurance companies reminding them of the fact the NOCs have expired, thereby attracting possible legal implications. It might do to suggest that if passenger safety were compromised somehow it could lead to an insurance nightmare. It’s worth a try -- certainly better than all the government duplicity thus far. For the record, the insurance policy of the Arabian Sea King expires on December 22, 2010, The Leela – November 10, Casino Royale – October 15, San Domino – August 7, Caravela – December 22, Boa Sorte – November 2. So there.

You are what you eat

Rane threw his first bash on May 4, 2009, a lunch for a Health Advisory Committee catered by Kebab Corner at a cost of Rs 19,350. On June 28 he dined 40 delegates of Goa Medical College (GMC) meeting at Cidade-de-Goa. Cost: Rs 64,548. By the way Rane’s fave watering hole is the Cidade-de-Goa, where he threw another lunch costing Rs 36,995 for participants of a Health Advisory Council on July 4. Then there was this mother of all meals on August 2 for doctors of the GMC and DHS that cost you Rs 3,16,939 at Cidade-de-Goa. The justification, and I quote was “in respect of achievement and the new initiation of Government of Goa in the health sector.” (Chew on this too - On September 24, a year earlier he threw a party for 250 delegates attending a seminar on “Strategies for improving livelihood security of rural poor” on board the Santa Monica. Cost: Rs 3,10,250. Hiring the vessel cost an extra 25 grand. Food provider: NH 17). The next day, on August 3 he hosted another lunch for the Health Advisory Committee at NH 17. Cost: Rs 16,450.

No free lunch for the aam aadmi

Compare that with what the aam aadmi gets. Remember the damage caused to famers Bhagwan V. Naik and Sandeep L. Naik of Menkure village in Bicholim taluka by an elephant a couple of years ago. They each got a compensation of Rs 200 paid by cheque which must have made them even more distraught. By the cheque that is, not the paltry sum. Imagine the embarrassment of producing that to the bank and withdrawing the money a couple of days/ weeks later! And if you are wondering why I give a 2008 example? It’s only to make a virtual comparison. A 2010 comparison would be the Mopa land acquisition rate of Rs 60 per sq. mt that the government is going to give.

Barking up the wrong tree

You read about the thousand plus committees the government formed. This takes the cake. The Forest Department established seven committees between June 2007 and now. What is really amusing are names like this: ‘Identification of balance area of private forest’; ‘State level expert committee for identification of critical wildlife habitats’; ‘South Goa district committee’ – it was formed to identify private forest in South Goa; ‘State Board for Wildlife’; ‘Committee to review/ exam draft working plans of Forest Department’; ‘Governing body of State CAMPA (Compensatory Afforestation Management Planning Authority)’; ‘Steering committee of state CAMPA’; and ‘Executive committee of state CAMPA’. You ask but where’s the forest? Probably hidden under the forest of committees! The State Board for Wildlife has 39 members with the usual quota of MLAs (including Anil Salgaocar, the mine owner - an irony surely considering that it is excavation of mines that have destroyed forests!) and government babus (understandably). There’s also a cab owner who I think has a bar at Mollem and another, who is a pal of Filipe Neri Rodrigues, the Minister for Forests. But why the DG, Commandant, Coast Guard, Directors of Dabolim Airport, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Social Welfare? It’s like missing the trees for the forest.

Cost of the party

Digambar Kamat (April 2009-Feb 2010) Rs 22,07,748

Vishwajeet Rane (May-August 2009) Rs 4,54,282

Total: Rs 26,62,030

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Wine and Dine

2010-08-02T03:33:00.000-07:00

Party Time -1

They spent Rs 93,42,544 (see earlier Flying Circus series) flying over a relatively short period of less than two years. Nobody knows why really or what was achieved from it, except the flying was primarily to Mumbai and Delhi, some of it to holiday destinations and pilgrim centres. The Gods must be desperate, you’d think except your montris felt getting you to pay for their absolution was okay! Next they let their hair down and partied till the cows came home. Your montris of course are nonchalant, showing no remorse in spending your valuable tax bucks for their politicking, holidaying, dining and even when they play pilgrims. You can’t even call it valuable any longer considering the way it’s blown up, in this the latest example, all of Rs 72,00,144 spent to entertain so-called VIP’s between April 2008 and February 2010. For your information, the meaning of VIPs in Goa could be anything from a bunch of sarpanches to officials who came to the 26th Sub-Junior National Aquatic Championships. I did say sub-junior, that’s how underused your tax bucks are. Because you probably think your valuable tax money, ironically called ‘revenue expenditure’ in the lingua franca of government, is being spent on real development. You could also say misspent, but the word misspent like the word ‘development’ too has lost its meaning in Goa. I had almost forgotten, but there was also this little matter of Rs 29,83,639 that the Protocol Department spent on accommodation and food for all VIP’s visiting Goa. That’s a neat Rs 1,01,83,783 and cooking if you add the unpaid bills (explained below).

Let's Party Officially

On April 3, 2009 and twice on April 4 Digambar Kamat blew Rs 3,850, Rs 3,850 and Rs 10,135 on tea and snacks supplied by Kebab Corner at his little used official Altinho residence at what was described as “official meetings”. On May 26 he threw that aquatic championship bash which cost you Rs 50,000. The real shall we say beneficiary was Bhingi Caterer, Ponda. The next month, on June 7, Kamat hosted a dinner for so-called ‘dignitaries’ of the 2nd Marathi Film Festival, 2009 at the Goa Marriott. Cost: Rs 1,42,832. Let’s take a tea break here and try and understand the words ‘official’ ‘dignitary’ and ‘host’. In the jargon of government, ‘official’ means all-inclusive or all-embracing and no questions asked. ‘Dignitary’ well, if I explained that in writing it would need parental guidance for your reading. ‘Host’, in Goa, well, at least it does not mean someone who invites and entertains guests and pays for it. The Goa Marriott was the venue for his next dinner (July 13) in honour of the chairman and members of the 5th Western Region Consultation. Don’t ask. I haven’t a clue. Cost: Rs 43,705. He dined the Chief Secretary at the Taj Exotica on July 18 spending Rs 45,437 and hosted a “budget presentation” dinner at Taj Vivanta on July 24. Cost: Rs 23,285. For all the talking his ministers and Congress MLA’s did during the 12 working days of the Assembly Session from July 21-August 6, 2009, Kamat rewarded them with tea and snacks served up by Kebab Corner at a cost of Rs 72,000. He was back to entertaining the next day August 7, throwing a dinner at Cidade-de-Goa for Narendra Jadhav, member of the Planning Commission. Cost: Rs 62,357. Tea and snacks for god-knows-who on Independence Day at his official residence (no, not the Margao home, that’s his unofficial official residence). Cost to you: Rs 17,000. Provider: Kebab corner.

Party On

On August 30, he threw Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister of State for Environment and Forest and “others” a party that cost you Rs 1,00,689 at the Cidade-de-Goa. Obviously! While, I sincerely doubt Jairam Ramesh partook of the food with the same gusto as the “others”, I wager he was used more as a scapegoat for the shindig. Unfortunately we don’t get to know who went to the party but the environment must have been good. On September 1, Kamat offered his hardworking MLA’s tea and snacks at a Congress Legislature Party meet at Altinho. Cost: Rs 7,200. Provider: Kebab Corner. He dined Prema Cariappa, Chairperson, Central Social Welfare Board, Delhi at the Sun & Sand, Panjim on October 10 that cost Rs 28,153. The chosen one, the Cidade-de-Goa was again the venue (October 12) for a dinner for the Secretary, Information & Broadcasting. Cost: Rs 39,852. Then there was dinner (October 28) for newspaper editors at Hotel Mandovi that cost Rs 19,491 and dinner (November 2) for Justice Swatantar Kumar, Chief Justice, Bombay High Court at Hotel Vivanta that cost Rs 54,601.

……And On

Hotel Vivanta was ‘graced’ again by Kamat and his invitees on November 11, 2009, this time believe it or not, in honour of the Council of Young Political Leaders who toted up a tab of Rs 1,16,505. Perhaps they were unaware they were gobbling up your tax bucks. Google says this is an organization dedicated to promoting diplomacy and mutual understanding between cultures through exchanges such as these! What on earth were they doing in Goa? Kamat’s fave hotel, the Cidade-de-Goa was the venue for a costly jamboree in honour of delegates from the Information & Broadcasting Ministry during the International Film Festival of India closing on December 3, 2009. Cost: Rs 11,91,337. If you think that’s a lot of good money ill spent on a bunch of gatecrashers who have been coming every year, mull over this. Kamat blew Rs 1,04,419 on a do on board Noah’s Ark in honour of Prakash Jaiswal, the Union Minister of State for Home. I have no idea who the other party animals were but surely they, like Noah’s guests, must have been invited in pairs (male/female) not because the Mandovi threatened to flood; because Jaiswal alone couldn’t have consumed Rs 1,04,419worth of food and booze.

Till the cows come home

On February 1, 2010 Kamat hosted a dinner for Ajay Maken, the Union Minister for State for Home Affairs at Taj Vivanta. On February 12 a dinner for ‘dignitaries’ and speakers at the DD Kosambe Festival of Ideas at Cidade-de-Goa and on February 23, a lunch to host that so-called pre-budget consultation meeting again. To think they even have to gorge on chicken kebab just to break their heads on how to spend your tax bucks! The venue for this was NH-17, Porvorim. The bills for these are awaited and so I can’t share that with you yet.

The condensed month of February, 2010 ended with a Rs 71,500 dinner thrown at the Majorda Beach Resort for some unnamed invitees on February 26. There was no hiatus in Feb for him because the very next night Kamat had a do for the retiring Inspector General of Police KD Singh at the Park Hyatt. Bills awaited. That’s five parties in 28 days! Now Singh, if you remember is that cop who introduced Russian belly dancers to the Anjuna cops and only came to Goa to build his Porvorim home. What a farewell!

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No Pain, all Gain?

2010-07-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

UP STETHOSCOPE

Suspecting they are being scammed, at least 18 insurance companies, including four in the public sector, have delisted more than 150 hospitals in Delhi and the National Capital Region (or NCR, which is basically the Delhi region) from their designated list for Mediclaim insurance. Could a virus strain of this scam have already affected the hospital scheme that entitles you to cashless medical facilities in Goa? The news broke last week and the position on this could change. Your periscope (like a submarine) should be up and looking. In this case, you would need a stethoscope to grope for the evidence. You should like a doctor be able to feel the heavy breathing of anticipation within the corridors of government officialdom and the medical fraternity. The pounding of heart beats. The hard medical facts are, your government reimbursed a huge Rs 11,64,02,329 in 2008-2009 to 16 of the 21 empanelled hospitals under Mediclaim. In 2009-2010 up till February 28, 2010 the government paid Rs 8,04,16,423 to 18 of the 21 hospitals under the Mediclaim scheme (see list for actual details). The government owes an additional Rs 5,73,14,125 to 14 hospitals for the period 2009-10. All in all that makes it a mammoth Rs 25,41,32,877 the government paid a clutch of hospitals. You sense some fiddling here? O course, you do, because either we are a very, very ill community and must be all laid up which would explain the sussegad in us. Or, as you rightly diagnosed, it must be a few hundred unwell who are making an even smaller group of people glowing with good health extremely rich with all that moolah. Who said wealth does not bring happiness? Because even a pinprick of the Rs 25,41,32,877 has to make you feel good. Call it wellness.

Dr. DIAGNOSTIX

A doctor’s diagnosis is that the list itself of sick persons who are asked by the Directorate of Health Services to reimburse the hospitals directly is very small. The reasons are obvious. But the list of sick given the benefit of a cashless transaction is huge. The reasons are obvious again. No transparency at this level means more cash for officialdom and hospitals. In an ironic way cashless for you means more cash for them. That’s why the 18 insurance companies have a deep suspicion and have acted before the virus spreads. Let’s see what happens in Goa next.

UNDER INTENSIVE CARE

HOSPITALS IN GOA

In the two financial years 2008-09, 2009-10 (up to February 28) Apollo Victor Hospital, Margao was paid Rs 3,76,98,886 and Rs 2,31,76,294; Om Urology, Panjim Rs 16,93,772 (08-09 only); Chodankar Hursing Home, Porvorim Rs 70,37,216 and Rs 31,60,789; Goa Manipal Hospital, Dona Paula Rs 2,80,573 and Rs 8,34,672; NUSI Hospital, Cuncolim Rs 41,91,702 and Rs 2,56,538; Vivus, SMRC, Vasco Rs 80,10,911 and Rs 37,36,403; Vrundavan Hospital, Mapusa Rs 28,01,801 and Rs 40,12,195; Grace Cardia Care, Margao Rs 4,97,927 (09-10 only); SMRC Vasco Rs 95,449 (09-10 only).

HOSPITALS OUTSIDE GOA

KLES Hospital, Belgaum Rs 2,85,53,156 and Rs 1,62,38,625; RG Stone, Mumbai Rs 29,62,421 (08-09 only); Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai Rs 72,65,972 and Rs 75,05,163; Wockhardt Hospital, Bangalore Rs 77,96,635 and Rs 54,64,240; Kasturba Hospital, Manipal Rs 14,00,117 and Rs 17,47,054; Ruby Hall Clinic, Pune Rs 3,11,715 and Rs 1,00,077; Sankara Netralaya, Chennai Rs 7,49,837 and Rs 5,96,368; Santosham Chest, Chennai Rs 84,743 (08-09 only); Neogen, Bangalore Rs 55,62,872 and Rs 1,24,852; Wockhardt Hospital, Mumbai Rs 2,63,507 (09-10 only); Manipal Heart Foundation, Bangalore Rs 1,18,796 (09-10 only); Belgaum Cancer, Belgaum Rs 1,14,474 (09-10 only).

REIMBURSED IN 2008-09 Rs 11,64,02,329

REIMBURSED IN 2009-10 Rs 08,04,16,423

TOTAL: Rs 19,68,18,752

REIMBURSEMENT PENDING WITH GOVERNMENT (2009-10)

Apollo Victor Hospital, Margao Rs 1,75,55,000

Chodankar Nursing Home, Porvorim Rs 9,08,665

Goa Manipal Hospital, Dona Paula Rs 10,45,000

Vivus, SMRC, Vasco Rs 50,78,000

Vrundavan Hospital, Mapusa Rs 15,05,000

Grace Cardia Care, Margao Rs 5,60,000

Campal Clinic, Panjim Rs 41,60,000

KLES Hospital, Belgaum Rs 1,43,40,000

Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai Rs 6,55,000

Wockhardt Hospital, Bangalore Rs 24,28,000

Kasturba Hospital, Manipal Rs 6,65,000

Sankara Netralaya, Chennai Rs 4,25,000

Neogen, Bangalore Rs 78,09,460

Belgaum Cancer, Belgaum Rs 1,80,000

TOTAL: Rs 5,73,14,125

GRAND TOTAL: Rs 25,41,32,877

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Flying Circus VIII

2010-07-18T04:34:00.000-07:00

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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Flying Circus VII

2010-07-18T04:28:00.000-07:00

Will he upgrade?

Jose Philip D’Souza, Minister for Revenue

Mercifully, he is not much of a frequent flier. He made 24 flights during that same period. But, now that he has become the National Congress President, heaven help us! Pray that his fairly regular patronage of Economy Class (ten of 24 flights) does not change.

2008 High Maintenance

06-07 May, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 16,463+355, total Rs 16,818; 10-19, May, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 31,538+2,600, total Rs 34,138; a one-dayer on 5 May flying Mumbai-Bangalore, Rs 13,190+95, total Rs 13,285; 02-03 July, Mumbai, Rs 8,400+442, total Rs 8,842. His next five flights including one in 2009 (all but one Economy Class) took him to Delhi, that I speculate happened at the behest of the National Congress Party or the G-7 and that as in the case of the Dhavlikar Brothers Inc, is costing us plenty. The Dhavlikar Brothers, you would know if you have been following this column in the past, burnt up a lot of your tax bucks on account of all the litigation over the disqualification petitions that were fought in the Supreme Court because of them. 1) 25-26 July, Delhi, Rs 31,055+520, total Rs 31,575. 2) 17-18 August, Delhi, Rs 27,432+405, total Rs 27,837. 3) 11-12 September, Delhi, Rs 24,637+405, total Rs 25,042. 4) 22-23 October, Delhi, Rs 24,195+318, total Rs 24,513. So not only do you shell out big bucks to maintain them in high office but also when they get flirty with other political parties.

2009 Missing in Goa

5) 06-08 August, Delhi, total Rs 11,850. As you can see, all but this flight were the typical quick overnight visitations to Delhi, like quickies - in and out- just about enough time to pay obeisance to their political masters or, be told come back again which I am informed happens frequently. If the CM and Vishawajeet Rane are regulars at Tirupati, then Churchill, Joaquim and even Jose Philip put the shrine of Annai Velankani in Nagapattinam on their agenda. Which is why you see them heading to Trichy, the closest airport to Nagapattinam.

Jose Philip’s quick flights to Delhi dominated the year, like so; 19-20 January, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 24,585+442, total Rs 25,027; 28-29 January, Delhi, total Rs 14,460; 28 Feb-01 March, total Rs 13,799. In fact Jose Philip probably spent more time in Delhi in January and in March than the two central ministers MK Alagiri and Mamata Banerjee who regularly go AWOL even during cabinet meetings. 03-06 March, Mumbai-Lucknow-Mumbai, total Rs 20,458; 11-13 March, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, total Rs 24,755; 30 April-2 May, Mumbai, total Rs 8,458; 26 May-01 June, Madras-Trichy-Madras, Rs 28,808+1,395, total 30,203; 02-03 June, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 16,367+520, total Rs 16,887; 18-20 August, Delhi, Rs 15,006+665, total Rs 15,671; 29-30 August, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 28,200+483, total Rs 28,683; 25-27 September, Mumbai, Rs 8,785+702, total Rs 9,487. He flew thrice to Mumbai/Delhi in a single month: 1) 06-10 December, Mumbai, Rs 7,074+1,222, total Rs 8,296. 2) 19-20 December, Delhi, Rs 16,250+405, total Rs 16,655. 3) A one-dayer to Delhi on 21 December that cost you Rs 33,599. And another one-dayer to Mumbai on 8 January 2010 that cost you Rs 17,608. And like me you might wonder what more can our montris achieve in a day in Delhi or Mumbai that cannot be done over the mobile. Is it because neither side trusts each other, and therefore need to eyeball each other? After all, the carry-case lie detector like the portable blood pressure monitor hasn’t been invented yet.

The Flying Club Cost so far:

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

Grand Total: Rs 88,45,439

“It is a Bullshit”

Famous last words of drug peddler-in-denial Yaniv Benhaim a.k.a Atala. He used them to describe almost everything except himself, which if he did, would be the only truth he ever spoke. Famous last words because by the time you read this, he would have flown the coop. If he hasn’t it is only because Atala has decided to stay back to learn more from our politicians courtesy the Goa Police deliberately bungling the investigation. Where do you think he learnt to blame the media for getting into a spot and also to deny afterwards that a top politician’s son is involved in drug peddling? Huh, where? It’s from our politicians. Look at it this way, stay back and he gets to at least learn which Notary Public has a valid license if push comes to shove and he ends up needing an affidavit to be notarised. If he sticks around Ravi Naik and Digambar Kamat) can use his ‘innocence’ as a reference on Goa being drug-free. Why, he could even join the Congress which is looking for recruits, now that he is ‘free from all sin.’ Where do you think the police got the idea of going to Sweden to interrogate the Israeli’s ex-girlfriend Lucky Farmhouse? From the Flying Circus, of course. With a name like that, the trip to Sweden would be a breeze. I am not being sarcastic. There is a cheaper solution, put him through a lie detector. Lie detectors don’t take BS.

P.S. Take note, he didn’t deny his allegation that certain journos were on his payroll. Interesting!

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Flying Circus VI

2010-06-28T05:53:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving to the Lord

I said it before and I say it again. Tirupati is like a magnet for many of our montris and our chief montri. He was there on June 23. It’s not a coincidence that Kamath was there days after Babush merged his UGDP into the Congress giving the Grand Old Party 19 MLAs. That’s not all. Kamath is secure now that he has co-opted the “CEO” of the Group of Seven. No wonder he was in Tirumala to give thanks.

Mumbai, here I come

Manohar ‘Babu’ Azgaonkar, Minister for Panchayat Raj & RDA

The flight plans of our montris tend to sometimes reveal a little bit about them, like for instance, visiting Mumbai is like an adrenalin rush for many. It varies too. Nilkanth Halarnkar got his rush recently promising everything he wasn’t, for the love of God, ever going to keep but had to say because they think you and I are dimwitted. Other montris get their rush flying Business Class. It’s free in any case. Babu Azgaonkar gets his, flying to Mumbai. Of his fifteen flights made between April 2008-January 2010, ten were made to Mumbai, and only two to Delhi. But he did, by the way, go easy on your tax bucks, flying Business Class on four occasions only. Don’t thank him yet, he might change his flying habit after reading this. In fact, the government could do well by accepting his flight fares as an average or MRP if you will for flying your montris to Mumbai and Delhi. Babu Azgaonkar could, as a matter of fact, offer his services as adviser on low cost flying. Case in point: his flight Mumbai-Kolhapur cost you a piddling (compared to what his compadres-in-the-air blew) just Rs 3,350 in April, a time when fares actually sizzle. Take a look.

2008 You pay they fly

11-13 April, Mumbai, Rs 13,585+702, total Rs 14,287; 23-25 April, Delhi, Rs 25,150+615, total Rs 25,765; 26-29 April, Mumbai-Kolhapur, Rs 3,350+702, total Rs 4,052; 26-28 June, Mumbai, Rs 7,600+780; total Rs 8,380; 02-03 August, Mumbai, Rs 16,609+442, total Rs 17,051; 19-22 September, Mumbai, Rs 7,555+962, total Rs 8,517; 11-14 October, Mumbai, Rs 17,385+962, total Rs 18,347; 23-24 October, Mumbai, Rs 8,320+520, total Rs 8,840; 17-19 November, Mumbai, Rs 7,895+72, total Rs 8,597.

2009

06-10 January, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 14,953, 04-06 April, Mumbai, Rs 19,819+702, Rs 20,521; 06-08 June, Mumbai, Rs 7,258+780, total Rs 8,038; 01-03 July, Mumbai, Rs 4,708+702, total Rs 5,410; 04-11 November, Hyderabad-Tirupati-Hyderabad, Rs 13,458+1,101, total Rs 14,468. Strangely, when Vishwajeet Rane also flew to pray at the Lord Venkateshwara Temple in July 2008 his Economy Class airfare cost Rs 43,439. That’s why I say take his as the basis for future reference.

2010

13-15 January, Mumbai, Rs 1,058+702, total Rs 10,760.

Filipe Neri Rodrigues, Minister for Water Resources & Forests.

He seems to be a rarity among our council of ministers, barely zipping here and there unlike the others who sprout wings soon after induction into the cabinet.

2008

30 June-03 July 2008, Mumbai, Rs 13,078+962, total Rs 14,040.

2009

06-08 January Delhi, total Rs 11,850; 06-07 July, Delhi, Rs 13,896+520, total Rs 14,416.

The Flying Club Cost so far:

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

Grand Total: Rs 83,65,993

Whose pleasure?

A lot has been said about the crap (literally) dumped by the offshore Casinos and pleasure vessels, more so after the pollution control board woke up from hibernation, blinked, poked its still-drowsy head into the squalid waters of the Mandovi, and surfaced quickly pronto as if it had sighted the Loch Ness monster. Only this was not the north of Scotland. It was not even our own little Nessie (as the Scots affectionately call the LN). It was like the crap hit the ceiling as the saying goes. Everyone was running helter-skelter, one daily (not Herald) even turning it into a circus. Whatever happened to action taken? If there was action to be taken, that is. Anyway, here’s an itsy bitsy bit (but which ought to raise a stink no less) of information, no one bothered to dig up then. My point being for all the crap and garbage the poor Mandovi gets, see what your government gives the rich Casino and pleasure vessel owners in return? Talk of inverse proportional benefits to the rich!

The Captain of Ports Department has four jetties in Panjim. The Malim jetty which the Mandovi Fisherman Marketing Co-Op Society has virtually commandeered and where someone, I am not sure who, even collects an entry fee from shoppers brave or foolish enough to buy the rather expensive fish sold there. The other three jetties are allegedly used on a temporary basis for berthing mainly the pleasure boats on what is called “touch and go basis”. Quaint. Only your government could think of such a catchy turn of phrase. These are the Patto jetty where the Goa Tourism Development Corporation’s, Priya Darshani River Cruises, Parsadise Cruises, Aqua World and Savio Messias are allowed to anchor or moor their vessels, leave out the ‘touch and go bit’ –it just doesn’t work like that. Now, all this information I garnered from the department itself. There is the Captain of Ports jetty, the eastern part of which is like or was like a permanent home for Leela Ventures from as far back as December 12, 2007. The fourth and last is the jetty on the western side of the Captain of Ports building leased to Goa Coastal Resorts and Recreation from October 24, 2008. All this for a song – an itsy bitsy Rs 4.30 lakh per annum. The reasons why these prized assets are not publicly auctioned but are furtively granted at the rulers’ sanctorum at Porvorim where pockets are touched and the bidder departs pleased as punch, are not known. All I can offer is that a helluva clever pickpocket, operating within those hallowed portals, made good use of the ancient Port Rules of 1983 and between toucher and touched got the compliant Captain of Ports to oblige. How touching! Thanksgiving to the Lord.

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Flying Circus - V

2010-06-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

You ain't seen nothin yet!

Fortunately for your tax bucks, Francisco ‘Mickky’ Pacheco, the former Minister for Tourism blinked first in the Mexican stand-off and resigned, but don’t pop that bubbly yet, your good cheer could end sooner than later. Because, instinct suggests that Srikanth Halarnkar as tourism minister (as I write this on June 15) may already have both eyes on the tourism convention calendar and a hand on the phone. You have doubts? Then why did he say post-induction: “I have no demands blah, blah, blah”. Plus this gem: “I will resign my ministership if Mickky Pacheco gets back” or words to this effect. In the double-talk of politicians, it simply, means: “Demands? Boy, I haven’t even begun/just wait till I start making them.” Also, for the reason that tourism ministers and officials of both the Goa Tourism Development Corporation and Tourism Department simply can’t resist packing their bags and taking off behind their masters on foreign junkets, like supporting actors, in the Flying Circus. In the past, it happened each time a new minister took charge, Mickky only took it to a new level. His reputation for long-haul flying even gave Manohar Parrikar the opportunity to sack him as a minister while on an expense-paid trip on 4 June 2004. Heaven help us if he were the sports minister today. His air and World Cup tickets would have been a waste after costing us an arm and a leg. To think, he would have stayed the entire course of the World Cup.

On Mickky’s trail

On 09-17, 2008 November he flew Mumbai-London-Mumbai which cost Rs 2,54,489 and was paid DA of Rs 23,076. The question is, should a government perk like DA be paid to a minister on a foreign junket when even his restaurant tips are covered. It’s logical or rather or rather makes sense if a minister flies off to Mumbai, but abroad, DA? Then there was his cab fare (see what I mean?) of Rs 2,40,000 (did he hire helicopters?) and hotel expenditure of Rs 1,49,310 making it a grand total of Rs 6,66,875 of tax money squandered away. Wasted, because what good does it do, participating in foreign tourism conventions to sell Goa over and over again with nothing new to offer and even less to show by way of improved tourist infrastructure. The squalor in the Colva creek will persist, tourists will continue to balance sightseeing with garbage sighting, and get short-changed at each transaction virtually.

Mickky gets picky

On 20-24, 2009 September he flew Mumbai-Dubai-DME (Russia)-Dubai-Mumbai, Business Class which cost Rs 53,710, was paid DA of Rs 8,104, strangely did not incur any cab fare but incurred a hotel expenditure of Rs 81,600. Total: Rs 1,43,414.

Goldfinger gets brazen

Yeah, I know, I know, he doesn’t wear them nowadays, but I couldn’t resist it. He was airborne again on 09-22 November, 2009 flying Doha-London-Helsinki-Copenhagen-Zurich-Rome-London-Doha, Business Class, spending Rs 1,87,621 on airfare, got paid DA of Rs 64,650, spending nothing on cab fare and incurring a huge Rs 1,36,386 on hotels. Total: Rs 3,88,657. All of which really, really makes the airfare of Rs 2,54,489 to London very, very suspect, as is the equally questionable cab fare of Rs 2,40,000 and I do know London cab fares are exorbitant. But to spend Rs 34,285.71 per day on cabs when you are supposed to be hard selling Goa! Whatever the facts behind these three hugely unnecessary junkets, Micky did manage to spend Rs 11,98,946 of your hard earned money. But with every new fact tumbling out on la affaire Mickky, go figure the hows and wherefores.

Fellow rambler, Minister for Education

2008 Year of Coincidence

Like his buddies, Babush began his flying with that familiar airdash to you know where on 22-23 September, at a cost of Rs 57,510+355, total Rs 57,865; followed by another to Delhi on 25-26 November, Rs 51,320+355, total Rs 51,675. Why coincidence? It just happened that of the 17 flights he took, nine took place when Vishwajeet Rane was also in Mumbai, which to the Goa G-7, is like Davos is to the real G-8 and corporate czars. For the same reason that on 15-21 December (cost: Rs 24,705+1,655, total 26,360) when he flew to Mumbai, Rane was there (18-24). Still think I’m on a flight of fancy?

2009 more happening together

He began the year with a flight to Delhi-Mumbai between 06-11 January, that cost Rs 60,828. Rane was there too (06-09). 08-11 April, Mumbai, Rs 19,868+960, total Rs 20,828; 13-17 April, Mumbai, Rs 19,868+1,185, total Rs 21,053. Monseratte’s next five flights to Mumbai coincided with Rane being there YET AGAIN. Rane was in Mumbai on 27 April-01 June. The flights are: 1) 27-28 April, Mumbai, Rs 22,013+520, total Rs 22,533. 2) 15-24 May, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 63,787+2,340, total Rs 66,127. 3) 19-21 May, Mumbai, Rs 20,268+780, total Rs 21,048. 4) 22-24 May, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 61,706+702, total Rs 62,408. 5) 27-28 May, Mumbai, Rs 20,268+442, total Rs 20,710. 10-13 June, Mumbai, Rs 20,268+962, total Rs 21,230; 30 June-01 July, Mumbai, Rs 22,432+442, total Rs 22,874; 09-10 August, Mumbai, Rs 22,432+442, total Rs 22,874. RANE WAS THERE TOO (he took a same flight) when Monseratte flew Delhi-Mumbai on 1-16 October, Rs 65,423+743, total Rs 66,166; 23-25 October, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 58,962+702, total Rs 59,664.

2010 Two minds with but one thought

Rane was again in Mumbai when Monseratte flew to Mumbai on 06-07 February, Rs 23,430+442, total RS 23,872. In the end a total of Rs 6,48,115 was spent on flying him Business Class only, mostly to Mumbai and no guesses why. It is where Sharad Pawar and Praful Patel of the National Congress Party hatch conspiracies against the Congress).

The Flying Club Cost so far:

Ravi Naik Rs 04,08,749

Vishwajeet Rane Rs 17,56,397

Digambar Kamat Rs 13,26,144

Dayanand Narvekar Rs 1,36,275

Joaquim Alemao Rs 12,34,442

Churchill Alemao Rs 14,28,633

Mickky Pacheco Rs 11,98,946

Babush’ Monseratte Rs 6,48,115

Grand Total: Rs 81,377,01

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Pigs have wings - Flying Circus(IV)

2010-06-13T04:43:00.000-07:00

More reason to squeal like pigs

He was in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, calling us names, proving yet again and like a spoilt child that he just wouldn’t tolerate even being rapped on the knuckles. Actually he was, ahem, squealing like a pig! Remember, he accused the concerned citizen leading the opposition against the Cavellossim bridge of being a loner in his battle; he said the same thing when someone led a protest against the Mumbai builder who is turning a part of Carmona into a concrete jungle for the rich to holiday. Clearly, Churchill Alemao brooks no opposition on the ground. In the air, he is king of all he surveys. Take a look at his flying exploits between April 2008 and January 2010, all paid by your tax bucks of course. The cost: Rs 14,28,633.

2008 Business with pleasure

The Union Minister for railways Mamta Banerjee spends more time in Kolkatta than in Delhi, the Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers is perpetually in Madurai when he should be in Delhi. Not so our our Goa montris who are in Delhi at the drop of a hat.
06-09 April, Delhi, Rs 24,626+1,040, total Rs 25,666; 17-18 April, Delhi, Rs 25,120+355; Rs 25,475. A one-dayer to Mumbai on 29 April that cost you just Rs 16,789 (Rs 16,607+182) because he flew Economy Class one way and quite obviously travelled without the human baggage the poor man seems to be saddled with. 31 May-01 June, Mumbai, Rs 20,034+442, total Rs 20,476; 04-05 June, Bangalore-Mumbai, Rs 37,448+277, total Rs 37,725; 14-15 June, Mumbai, Rs 20,634+520, total Rs 21,154; 23-24 June, Delhi, Rs 37,595+355, total 37,950. This is five overnight flights and a one-dayer in seven flights so far, and must surely add a new dimension to his line of work. 04-09, Chennai-Bangalore, Rs 29,327+1,482, total Rs 30,809; 12-16 September, Delhi, Rs 59,072+1,135, total Rs 60,207. The next one is something only Alemao Inc. could pull off. Between 07-13 October he flew Delhi-Calcutta at a cost of Rs 86,985+1,057, total cost Rs 88,042. If you remember brother Joaquim made that same rather expensive flight also to Calcutta on 11-13 October which I figured most certainly had nothing to do with the working of government, unless off course freebie flying is part of governance. So, what were the siblings doing in Calcutta? The answer could be in the fact that Churchill United played Chirag United on 12 October. Sadly, Churchill United drew 0-0 despite the huge fan support they got from Goa, if you get my drift. And then, these two overnight flights: 20-21 October, Delhi, Rs 51,596+520, total Rs 52,116; 12-13 December, Delhi, Rs 34,501.

2009 Delhi calls

07-08 January, Delhi-Mumbai, total Rs 67,208; 12-13 January, Delhi, Rs 53,796; 22-25 January, Delhi-Mumbai, total Rs 36,355, that’s three flights in a single month. 17-19 February, Delhi, total Rs 36,505. Churchill spent six days in Delhi between 25 February-03 March flying there Economy Class for Rs 14,986 only. But you can’t help noticing can you, the high cost of flying to Delhi prior to that, plus the huge difference in air fares, proving my point that there is something fishy going on. My theory is flying solo is not something our montris like to do, the more the merrier seems to be the motto. There is cause to mull over, because he flew back again on 05-12 March at a penny pinching fare of Rs 13,702. The big spending was back when he flew Delhi-Mumbai on 13-16 March at a cost to you of Rs 42,751+710, total 43,461, and if you hadn’t noticed his DA went up too but which for unknown reasons he did not claim for a short period. 16-22 March, Delhi, Rs 15,836+1,523, total Rs 17,359. He ended March, a month of tireless flying (5 flights, 25 days spent in Delhi), but entirely necessary in Goa’s treacherous power-play, with this jaw-breaker of a flight to Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai on 25-31 March that cost Rs 1,14,999 plus DA of Rs 1,705. But, it’s the flight cost that hurts. In fact of his 39 flights, he flew Economy Class only five times, clubbing Economy Class with Business Class thrice. And, so it went. 01-06 April, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 48,772+1,222, total Rs 49,994; 26-29 April, Delhi, Rs 32,783+1,040, total Rs 33,823; 06-07 May, Mumbai, Rs 14,463+520, total Rs 14,983; 21-23 May, Delhi, Rs 55,243+702, total Rs 55,945; 09-11 June, Delhi, Rs 33,360+780, total Rs 34,140; 08-09 August, Delhi, Rs 58,732+364, total Rs 59,069; 20-21 August, Delhi, Rs 34,999+260, total Rs 35,259, 03-9 September, Madras-Tiruchipally-Madras, Rs 44,144+945, total Rs 45,089; 19-23 September, Delhi, Rs 33,750+1,300, total Rs 35,050; 30 September-02 October, Mumbai, Rs 24,823+702, total Rs 25,525; 11-13 October, Delhi, Rs 33,235+780, total Rs 34,015; 22-24 October, Pune-Mumbai, Rs 24,600+504; total Rs 25,104; 31 October-02 November, Mumbai, Rs 22,276+615, total Rs 22,891; 09-10 November, Mumbai, Rs 21,393+364, total Rs 21,757; 23-25 November, Mumbai-Madras-Tiruchirapally-Madras, Rs 26,830+530, total Rs 27,360. Thus while the CM went to invoke the Gods in Tirupati, Churchill was Trichy-bound in September and November and one can safely assume that since Trichy is the closest airport to Nagapattiam which has the shrine of Annai Velankani, that’s where he was headed.
2010
04-05 January, Delhi, Rs 21,987+442, total Rs 22,429; 11-12 January, Mumbai, Rs 19,713+277, total Rs 19,990; 14-16 January, Delhi, Rs 14,714+483, total Rs 15,197.

The Flying Club Cost so far:

Ravi Naik Rs 04,08,749
Vishwajeet Rane Rs 17,56,397
Digambar Kamat Rs 13,26,144
Dayanand Narvekar Rs 1,36,275
Joaquim Alemao Rs 12,34,442
Churchill Alemao Rs 14,28,633
Grand total Rs 62,90,640

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Flying Circus -III

2010-06-13T04:42:00.000-07:00

Narvekar's clipped wings

The former Finance & IT Minister Dayanand Narvekar spent only Rs 1,36,275 on his flying but that was only because Digambar Kamat pressed his ejection seat button jettisoning him out of the cabinet, which Narvekar would of course argue, was done prematurely. Whatever their ‘code of conduct’ as politicians, his freefall resulted in him losing his ministership and as a result also his free membership to the Frequent Flyers club of government ministers. But, hey he did enjoy himself in the brief period he got to fly among the clouds. You could say he was on Cloud Nine!

2008

06-09 April, 2008, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 34,765+962, total Rs 35,727. He also flew to Bhuj, known for its palaces in traditional Kutchi style, spending 11 days in Bhuj, Gujarat flying Bangalore-Delhi-Mumbai-Bhuj-Mumbai Business Class between 17-28 April, 2008 at a cost to you of Rs 84,112+ Rs 2,360, total Rs 86,472. He flew again between 18-20 May, 2008, Mumbai (Rs 13,556+520) at a total cost to you of Rs 14,076.

Business as usual

Another aficionado of the travel-at-taxpayers-cost is Joaquim Alemao, the Minister for Urban Development. Of his 27 flights between April 2008 and January 2010 he flew Economy Class only once, perhaps only because there wasn’t a Business Class seat available. His flying cost you Rs 12,34,442.

2008

28 April-04 May, Mumbai, Rs 16,930+1,655, total Rs 18,585; 24-26 June, Bangalore-Mumbai, Rs 37,210+1,135, total Rs 36,345; 19-20 July, Mumbai, Rs 19,910+442, total Rs 20,352; 08-09 August, Bangalore, Rs 24,237+442, total Rs 24,679; 18-19 August, Bangalore, Rs 17,765+442, total Rs 18,207; 05-08 September, Bangalore-Calcutta, Rs 54,635+1,040, total Rs 55,675; 11-13 October, Bangalore-Calcutta, Rs 84,330+577, total Rs 84,907. While his recent flights seem to have taken him to Bangalore for reasons best known to him, his rather expensive flight to Calcutta on 11-13 October most certainly had nothing to do with the working of the government, more likely I guess with the fact that Churchill Brothers played Mohun Bagan in Calcutta on January 8. My research with a small margin for error also shows that a Goa-Mumbai flight at that point in time cost Rs 16,600 by Economy Class. What’s more, a Goa-Bangalore air ticket then cost Rs 11,919, a Bangalore-Calcutta flight cost Rs 29,444, a Calcutta-Mumbai flight cost Rs 22,664 and a Mumbai-Goa flight cost Rs 10,134 (Indian Airlines-Business Class fares). That makes it a total of Rs 74,161, well short of the Rs 84,330 Alemao spent. It was back to Mumbai for him : 21-25 October, Mumbai, Rs 24,705+1,300, total Rs 26,005; 13-17 November, Mumbai, Rs 26,070+1,097; Rs 27,167. His next flights completely expose the man’s enormous appetite for flying free. Between 08-09 August he flew to Delhi at a cost to you of Rs 58,070+482, total Rs 58,552. He was back to doing his quick Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VToL) like the Indian Navy’s Sea Harriers to Delhi between 23-24 December flying there at a cost of Rs 61,455. Go figure how he could manage to spend so much of your money because the airfares defy interpretation, mine at least, the increasing ATF cost (aviation turbine fuel) notwithstanding.

2009, crashing landing your tax bucks

Yet another quickie VToL flight between 23-24 December took him to Mumbai this time at a cost of Rs 30,658 and another between 20-21 January at a cost of Rs 37,852 and he ended his dizzy dashing off, this time a one-dayer, to Delhi on 19 February at a cost of Rs 45,085. And so it went. 14-16 March, Mumbai, total Rs 19,460; 14-16 March, Mumbai total Rs 19,460. Here’s a funny thing. He wasn’t paid DA for any of these flights. Poor man. Then came this whopper of a flight between 27-29 March when he flew Bangalore-Delhi-Mumbai at a cost to you of Rs 83,783+962, total Rs 84,745. 19-21 May, Mumbai, Rs 19,129+702, total Rs 19,831; another Goliath of a flight between 23-24 May to Delhi at a cost to you of Rs 67,684+442, Rs 68,126. In fact it’s all downhill (for your tax buck, that is) for you from here onwards, so fasten your seat belt while Alemao enters rarified air burning up your tax bucks like a jet’s afterburner that increases the thrust (in their case lust for flying) of a jet engine by feeding fuel into the hot exhaust (in your case leaving your tax bucks exhausted) gases. 11-15 June, Delhi-Mumbai-Chennai, Rs 73,795+1,222, total Rs 75,017; 20-21 June Mumbai, Rs 25,863+442, total Rs 26,305; 30 August-01 September, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 74,220+702, total Rs 74,922; 30 September-03 October, Mumbai, Rs 23,868+962, total Rs 24,830; 19-21 October, Delhi, Rs 58,480+702, total Rs 59,182.
2010
Alemao was back in India’s soccer capital between 06-09 January flying Mumbai-Calcutta-Mumbai at a cost of Rs 87,969+960, total Rs 88,929; another quick VToL between 20-21 January at a cost of Rs 57,274+442, total Rs 57,716 and finally 28-30 January, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 86,278+702, total Rs 86,980.
The Flying Club Cost so far:
Ravi Naik Rs 04,08,749
Vishwajeet Rane Rs 17,56,397
Digambar Kamat Rs 13,26,144
Dayanand Narvekar Rs 1,36,275
Joaquim Alemao Rs 12,34,442
Grand total Rs 48,62,007 and soaring

Oink, Oink

Let’s see, according to Churchill Alemao if you are a concerned citizen (and I am not talking about those who pontificate from the comfort of their homes or write letters to the editor like newsprint could go out of fashion) then you are a squealing pig, which makes Mathany Saldanha and Manohar Parrikar the mothers of all squealing pigs. I’m sure they won’t have a problem with being called that as I am sure Remo will title his next song “Oink, Oink”, an ode to the bacon and ham of Indian politics. I am also relieved that Goa’s 5-star hotels can now begin to rehire Goan waiters they had stopped employing because Goan youth only wanted that service certificate and not the job really thank you, to get a (gainful this time) job in the Gulf or on a cruise liner and which the hotels stopped issuing precisely because of that; because now Goan youth are queuing up for jobs as security guards - Goa’s latest career choice after 1,000 Goans filled up all the vacant posts for builders. It’s a stampede out there. This is the Gospel according to the man himself. Amen.

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Flying Circus - II

2010-06-05T05:32:00.000-07:00

A healthy flight schedule

This week let’s have a look at the travel forays of Vishwajeet Rane, the Minister for Health. Yes, the man and his henchmen called the Group of Seven (G7) whose constant pressure on the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat to quit is like a virus that has no cure, but could be good for the bottomline of the airline industry, and the reason that kept Kamat airborne for the most part of his 22-month period between April, 2008 and January 2010 (Mirror May 16).

2008

01-06 April (travel date), Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai (place visited), (airfare) Rs 50,420 + Rs 1,560 (DA), total Rs 51,980. As I wrote last Sunday, some of these airfares don’t just square up with the real fares. This one definitely looks on the higher side even when you factor in Rane’s stated preference for Business Class travel. 09-15 April, Mumbai, Rs 18,250+Rs 1,742, total Rs 19,692; 21-22 April, Mumbai, Rs 18,250+442, total Rs 18,692; 05-06 May, Mumbai, Rs 19,940+442, total Rs 20,382. Between 13 May-03 June Rane spent 21 days vacationing in Mumbai (or whatever he did there for such a long period) and got paid a DA of Rs 5,642. Total cost: Rs 25,582. 06-08 June, Mumbai Rs 20,540+702, total Rs 21,242; 12-14 June, Mumbai, Rs 20,540+624, total Rs 21, 164. Between 18-20 June he flew Delhi-Mumbai at a cost of Rs 51,415+615 (total cost: Rs 52,030). This time Rane flew Economy Class yet still landed up paying almost the same fare he paid for his first flight (01-06 April) but the longer Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai route flying Business Class. Something’s amiss surely. 27-28 June, Mumbai, Rs 20,540+442, total Rs 20,982; 30 June-01 July, Delhi, Rs 42,850+355, total Rs 43,205 and yet another Business Class flight. To Kamat’s credit, he flew Business Class on a total of four flights only, while, Rane flew Business Class on 35 of the total of 52 flights during the same period Kamat flew a total of 59 times. Quite obviously Rane’s flying around cost you more too at Rs 17,56,397 against Kamat’s Rs 13,26,144. But, put that down to his vanity and extravagance, if you like.
Austerity is not a word our montris are familiar with but Rane seems to have taken that to its height – almost as much as the flight that was transporting him for his various jaunts.

2008 and still flying

03-05 July, Mumbai-Shamshabad-Tirupati-Bangalore, Rs 43,439+530, total Rs 43,969; 09-10 July, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 59,980+446, total Rs 60,426. Rane flew on consecutive days to Delhi on 16 July flying Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 21,625+95, total Rs 21,720 and on 17 July flying Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 21,625+260, total Rs 21,885, which tells you much on how your tax bucks are wasted as the Group of Seven indulge in their healthy (according to them) game of toppling Kamat. 24-27 July, Bangalore-Coimbatore-Bangalore, Rs 34,095+845, total Rs 34,940; 06-07 August, Mumbai, Rs 21,510+364, Rs 21,874. Rane had another longish vacation in Mumbai between 06-16 September at a total cost of Rs 25,238. 11-15 October, Mumbai, Rs 22,418+1,300, total Rs 23,718; 19-27 October, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 63,399+2,340, total Rs 65,739; 02-04 November, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 37,723+780, total 38,503; 09-13 November, Mumbai, total Rs 13,991; 21 November, Mumbai-Delhi, total Rs 32,415; 04-06 December, Delhi-Mumbai, total Rs 59, 727; 18-24 December, Mumbai, total Rs 36,514.

2009 & the Big ‘B’ of Business Class

As a frequent flier to Mumbai, Rane deserves to be named the Big ‘B’ of Business Class because he flew Economy Class on three occasions of the many flights he made in 2009 and in fact up to 2010. 06-09 January, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 57,063, total Rs 57,063; 28 January-01 February, Mumbai, total Rs 13,692; 18-20 February, Mumbai, total Rs 20, 393. Between 26 February-01 March he evidently went on holiday flying Delhi-Jammu-Delhi at a total cost to you of Rs 64,390. 03-04 March Mumbai, total Rs 20,720; 08-11 March, Mumbai, total Rs 21,832. Between 13-19 March he spent a whopping Rs 90,623 flying the route Delhi-Bangalore-Kochi-Mumbai and quite clearly had some unofficial business to finish soon between 29 March-06 April at Mumbai flying there at a cost of Rs 20,867. Unfinished, did I say? He was back again in favourite Mumbai where he stayed longer between 27 April-01 June and his airfare cost you Rs 21,425 but his 35-day Mumbai jaunt cost you an extra Rs 9,282 by way of DA. 05-10 June, Mumbai-Coimbatore-Mumbai, Rs 37,639+1,560, total Rs 39,199. I can’t comprehend this one either, that is, the flight cost of Rs 60,078-624 travelling Business Class to Delhi-Mumbai between 17-19 June. In truth none of his more expensive flight costs make sense when you compare the market rates for a single passenger. 15-19 July, Mumbai, Rs 14,035+1,040, total Rs 15,075; 11-16. August, Mumbai, Rs 22,182+1,482, total Rs 23,664. Rane was back with another high-priced Business Class airfare flying to Delhi-Mumbai between 19-22 August at a cost of Rs 69,871+1,222. Total cost: Rs 71,093. 25-31 August, Mumbai, Rs 23,086+1,742, total Rs 24,828; 18-19 September, Mumbai, Rs 24,208+442, total Rs 24,650; 21-25 September, Mumbai, Rs 24,192+1,222, total Rs 25,414; 15-20 October, Mumbai, Rs 22,917+780, total Rs 23,697. Rane spent all of nine days in Mumbai again between 28 October-6 November, his total cost amounting to Rs 24,242+2,522. Total: Rs 26,764. 07-10 November, Bangalore, Rs 16,141+962, Rs 17,103; 12-13 November, Mumbai, Rs 22,835+442, total Rs 23,277; 18-24 November, Mumbai, Rs 22,835+1,742, total Rs 24,577. The same here: 05-11 November, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 65,637+1,820, total Rs 67,457. 28 December, Mumbai, total Rs 33,321; 05-10 January, Mumbai, Rs 28,092+1,560, total Rs 29,652; 31 January-04 February, Mumbai Rs 17,911+1,300, total Rs 19,211; 06-07 February, Mumbai, Rs 24,556+442, total Rs 24,998; 12-15 February, Mumbai, Rs 24,556+962, total Rs 25,518.

Total: Rs 17,56,397
Digambar Kamat: Rs 13,26,144

Grand total: Rs 30,82,541 and still soaring high.

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Don't have wings, but will still fly

2010-06-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

Flying Circus back in town -1

Yes, I am back with the Flying Circus and the flying expenses of ourmontris courtesy your tax bucks. Your Chief Minister spent Rs 13,26,144 flying mainly to New Delhi between April, 2008 and January 2010 my guess is on those frequent fire-fighting missions to stave off those seven MLA’s who seem to have an everlasting grudge against his “style” of ruling which means they won’t rest till he resigns which implies Kamat could almost permanently be airborne as his flying itinerary so far will prove. So really, one of the perks of being Goa’s CM is you get to fly frequently to Delhi and live in a 5-star hotel paid for again by your tax bucks. His to-ing and fro-ing worked out to 59 flights in 22 months at a cost of Rs 60,279 per month. Factor in the days spent in Delhi or Mumbai and the travel time and you will know how many days your Chief Minister was in the air in that short period.

2008

Digambar Kamat – (travel date) 14-16 April (place visited) Mumbai, (airfare) Rs 18,350 + (DA) Rs 442, total Rs 18,792; 18-19 April, Delhi, Rs 11,113+355, total Rs 11,468; 22-23 April, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 15,624+483, total Rs 16,107; 29-30 April, Mumbai, Rs 10,320+355, total Rs 10,675; 01-03 May, Bangalore, Rs 7,283+702, total Rs 7,985; 09-11 May, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 20,410+615, total Rs 21,025; 27-29 May, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 19,825+578, total Rs 20,403; 31 May-01 June, Mumbai, Rs 8,100+277, total Rs 8,377; 18-19 June, Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai, Rs 17,080+190, total Rs 17,270.
01-02 July, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 17,300+355, total Rs 17,655; 09-10 July, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 16,067+483, total Rs 16,550. Some of his high-cost flying needs scrutiny, especially as the costs are supposedly for single return airfares. For instance, between 14-17 July he flew Delhi-Mumbai Business Class at a cost of Rs 49,468+962, total Rs 50,430. 22-24 July, Delhi, Rs 12,444+780, total Rs 13,224. The same thing applies elsewhere: 29-30 July, Mumbai-Delhi-Delhi, Rs 49,375+446, total Rs 49,821. 06 August, Mumbai, Rs 21,615, total Rs 21,605; 10-12 August, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 26,398+537, total Rs 26,935. Ditto for 08-10 September, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 47,371+702, total Rs 48,073; 12-14 September, Delhi, Rs 13,275+483, total Rs 13,758. The same here: 22-24 September, Delhi, Rs 36,317+615, total Rs 36,932; 12-14 October, Delhi, Rs 18,864+615, total Rs 19,479, 02-04 November, Delhi, Rs 15,762+665, total Rs 16,427; 09-10 November, Delhi, Rs 14,469+405, total 14,874; 14-15 November, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 24,675+182, total 24,857; 21 November, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 28,741+182, total Rs 28,923; 01 December, Mumbai, Rs 26,043+95, total Rs 26,138; 04-07 December, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 19,429+962, total Rs 20,391; 26-27 December, Mangalore, Rs 13,660+230, total 13,890.
Also, work this one out for yourself. Kamat made four one day trips to Mumbai on August 6, 2008, on November 21, 2008 Delhi-Mumbai, on December 1, 2008 to Mumbai and July 26, 2009 to Mumbai.

Voted on swarag or earth?

You would think after being voted into power, politicians would feel indebted to the people who queued up in the scorching sun to cast their ballots. But no, they seem to think only divine intervention got them to their gaddis. But this is audacious. Even Digambar Kamat’s flights to Tirupati to pray at the Lord Venkateshwara Temple were paid by you. Between 22-23 June, 2008 he flew Mumbai-Hyderabad-Tirupati-Hyderabad at a cost of Rs 19,770+190. Total: Rs 19,960. Between 18-23 June, 2009 he took yet another Mumbai-Hyderabad-Tirupati-Hyderabad flight that cost you Rs 18,261+1,138. Total: Rs 19,399. And again between 03-07 January, 2010, this time taking the Mumbai-Shamshabad (Hyerabad’s new airport)-Tirupati-Shamshabad flight at a cost to you of Rs 33,583+1,097. Total: Rs 34,680. Curiously the Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane undertook the same pilgrimage in the first week of July, 2008 (on that later) but apparently failed to evoke Lord Venkateshwara’s blessing as he has not been able to unseat Kamat. But really, do we have to pay for this? Do the gods approve?

2009

04-08 January, Mumbai, Rs 15,380+1,222, total Rs 16,602; 07-10 February, Delhi, Rs 20,383+925, total Rs 21,308; 12-16 February, Mumbai-Calcutta (Dimapur)-Guwahati-Mumbai, Rs 37,984-635, Rs 38,619; 18-20 February, Mumbai, Rs 13,732+624, total Rs 14,356; 28 February-02 March, Delhi, Rs 18,427+780, total Rs 19,207; 13-15 March, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 16,348+355, total Rs 16,703. Here’s an expensive Economy Class flight: 16-20 May, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 35,478+1,003, total Rs 36,481; 21-24 May, Delhi, Rs 15,422+743, total Rs 16,165; 10-13 June, Delhi, Rs 16,415+925, total Rs 17,340; 06-07 July, Delhi, Rs 13,896+520, total Rs 14,416; 10-12 July, Mumbai, Rs 8,630+780, total Rs 9,410; 14-15 July, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 16,398+446, total Rs 16,844; 26 July, Mumbai, Rs 8,472+95, total Rs 8,567; 15-19 August, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 14,702+1,040, total Rs 15,742; 27-28 August, Mumbai, Rs 13,200+364, total Rs 13,564; 03-04 September, Delhi, Rs 19,383+483, total Rs 19,866; 14-15 September, Delhi, Rs 16,377+483, total Rs 16,860; 05-07 October, Mumbai-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 23,353+578, total Rs 23,931; 08-10 October, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 15,926+537, total Rs 16,463; 26-28 October, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 25,411+743, total 26,154.
There is something amiss here because the cost of Kamat’s next four flights to Delhi began to progressively increase. Was someone riding shotgun with him, a supportive MLA perhaps, not entitled to limitless flying perhaps? (1) 06-07 November, Delhi, Rs 17,373+442, total Rs 17,815; (2) 09-11 November, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 26,737+442, total Rs 27,179; (3) 16-18 November, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 41,560+624, total Rs 42,184; (4) 04-07 December, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 36,571+702, total 37,273; (5) 08-11 December, Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 30,696+702, total 31,398. And this lone flight on the eve of Christmas when the whole world shuts down: 24-25 December, Mumbai, Rs 17,289+442, total Rs 17,731.

2010

09-10 January, Mumbai, Rs 14,071+277, total Rs 14,348; 12-14 January, Mumbai-Delhi, Rs 38,020+702, total Rs 38,722; 20-23 January, Pune-Delhi-Mumbai, Rs 53,944+849, total Rs 54,793.
Grand Total: Rs 13,26,144.

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Not cool

2010-06-03T04:15:00.000-07:00

Blistering May

It’s going to be blistering the rest of May, sizzling even. Remember the Rs. 7,40,686 that Shaikh Aftab scammed in his capacity as supervisor of the accounts and taxation section of the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP). The sting was first exposed by the Comptroller and Accountant General of India and intimated to the Director of Municipal Administration on February 2, 2010. The CCP’s report was due last month. All eyes now are on the Administration-cum-Accounts Officer of the CCP and one truly wishes he didn’t have his shades on while he was doing his investigation.

……and facilitation money

But if May really sizzles it will because of the threat of the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) decision to terminate the contract given to Kanaka Infratech Ltd., Mumbai for ‘improvement of infrastructure at Patto Plaza in Panjim reported by an English daily on April 25. Mouthing his utter disgust at the company for miserably failing to deliver, EDC’s MD WV Murthy said no money had been paid to the company till now. Whoa, hold your horses, no money paid to the contractor yet, despite the fact the newspaper reported the so-called beautification project of Patto Plaza began in October 2009. Do infrastructure firms work for free? Murthy didn’t tell the paper, but the tender was worth Rs 9,20,38,780.70. Why sizzling? Because EDC despite its denial to the paper has actually paid Kanaka Infratech an amount of Rs 46,01,939 in accordance with the contract. Come now Mr. Murthy all builders and contractors are paid a huge advance, because that is what they use to start work and also from where the facilitation fee is paid to people. FYI, facilitation money was formerly called speed money, Vitamin M and Dhirubhai Ambani once famously called it ‘managing government’. Now, after the IPL (Indian Premier League) it is called facilitation fee. The advance was paid against a bank guarantee. So, is it going to be another legal saga like the true story of the sunken River Princess off Candolim and the salvaging firm Jaisu Shipping and bank guarantees and ………. Etc. etc. One thing bothers me though. The EDC has always harped on the landscaping as it calls it, of Patto Plaza. Even the newspaper quoted it as saying so. Details of the work order I have, clearly call it work that includes improvement of the existing infrastructure wherever needed. As far as I can recollect, the existing so-called infrastructure was built two decades ago and began deteriorating from Day 1 itself. Fact is, the Rs 9,20,38,780.70 is coming out of your pockets to pay for EDC’S past mistakes. Fact is, the Rs 46,01,939 has come out of your pocket. Future fact: EDC is going to re-tender the project (the report said). This cost too will come out from your pockets. I said Blistering, didn’t I?

Farmers as bakras

It’s truly an irony that a small state like Goa which cannot produce enough for its own citizens should even think of an agriculture mall when bigger states which produce all the essential (also called core vegetables) fruits and vegetables and not the seasonal vegetables that Goan farmers grow (melons, string beans, raddish etc) more for their own sustenance because they cannot double up as labourers like their counterparts in other states, have not done so. Chandrababu Naid started the single-window clearance 10 years ago. It’s no secret that the single window was only used for self-aggrandisement of politicians not industry or agriculture. The “rythu bazaars” (farmers market) concept started during Naidu’s time with much fanfare was supposed to delete the middleman (read politicos) so that farmers could sell directly to buyers and get a decent price. But that did not happen as farmers in AP were the first to commit suicide because they had no other way out of their debt traps. Designed to be a platform to better their lot, instead rythu bazaars became a synonym for corruption as retailers flocked there with their baskets and bought fruits and vegetables cheaply and sold them for double the price at their outlets. The rich became richer and the poor became poorer.

Another example

In Tamil Nadu, the uzhavar santhai (farmer’s markets) were started some years ago again to help farmers get a better price for their produce. It was evocatively described as “to help housewives exercise their haggling skills with illiterate farmers”. But if these markets were such a success story, then you would not have biggies like Reliance Fresh, More (Aditya Birla) and Heritage Farm Fresh (ironically owned by Naidu himself), raking in huge profits. Granted their prices are reasonable for an urban population which fits in shopping amidst a busy day schedule, but have farmers, who form the first step of this human chain, benefitted? This episode should answer that question. In January this year, farmers in a village in Krishnagiri district, TN boycotted ‘uzhavar santhai’ protesting against “official apathy”. About 13 farmers set up shops outside the santhai, sold their products for prices less than the ones fixed by the Agricultural Marketing Board. Board officials did nothing when intermediaries prevented farmers from bringing their produce to the market. As a result farmers were not able to sell their products whereas middlemen earned huge commissions by diverting produce to markets nearby. This shows there is a need to reconstruct our system of trade, not build agriculture malls that perpetuate exploitation of farmers. Better stay out of it.

Mall rats, literally!

But yet, a huge land bank 44,000 square metres (built up area) is going to be set aside at the Mapusa market yard to bring traders, buyers and sellers under one roof. And where are the real farmers in Goa and where for god sakes is the parking space in Mapusa. If anything, the mall will become the face-off between traders from Karnataka and Maharashtra and buyers who are also outsiders. Or, is this a seed planted for yet another money scam.

Like IFFI, but even more iffy!

It’s a bit like bringing the International Film Festival of India to Goa when there was neither a market nor serious consumers for films. Finally Goa seems to have been turned into the playground of Bollywood stars - and apparently an opportunity to scout for heritage homes and lay down roots – to come every year and act superior to the locals while Konkani cinema is far from thriving. Granted Bollywood is shooting more films here – even Diwar played host to a shooting on April 25. You should have seen the superior air and the swagger and attitude displayed by what could have only been extras and not A-listers like a Shah Rukh Khan who treated the locals as yokels blocking traffic in the island narrow roads and hogging the ferries!

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Learn from the young

2010-05-31T04:46:00.000-07:00

Vanxim Vanquished

Jelton Fernandes, all of just 17, is one of those few concerned citizens in an apathetic Goa I keep writing about in this column. He lives on Vanxim island tucked away north-west off Divar island and in the news these days because of the literally thousands of tons of sand that is being illegally extracted in the stretch from the old Captain of Ports jetty opposite the Jesus Christ Church of Vanxim up to the ferry jetty where the islanders cross over to Divar. The Captain of Ports jetty was where boats once ferried people from Vanxim directly to Panjim. No longer. Divar is where maximium apathy happens. Vanxim falls under the Sao Matias Village Panchayat and its sole panch Manuel Furtado couldn’t care less about the sand extraction and watches blithely as part of Vanxim’s shore gets eroded. Neither does the Sao Matias acting Sarpanch Tulsidas Kundaikar, who has been in office since June 2008. Kundaikar even had the audacity to tell a news channel that he had done all he could, which was shooting off letters to the Mines Department, the Goa Marine Police and Captain of Ports (CoP) and specifically picked on the extremely susceptible Captain A P Mascarenhas,(who retires next month) for his ‘inaction’ blaming the official squarely. But Kundaikar is an old hand at this, for years he blamed Mascarenhas for the government’s dismal record of building ferry boats. Though the illegal sand extraction has been going on for the past three months, Kundaikar didn’t think it was necessary to inform the Cumbarjua MLA Pundurang Madkaikar, till (unconfirmed yet) Sunday April 25 when another concerned villager Edgar D’Mello and Jelton met him protesting his own inaction. Earlier a group of about 15 Vanxim villagers also met him. The marine police did make on a joyride to the site. How else can you describe a boat trip when your cops come in a swift boat and don’t pursue the slow and cumbersome sand boats that promptly scooted off and no arrests made. In the backdrop of the calm river and two beautiful islands, joyride it was.

Inside Job

While it is mostly non-islanders who are robbing the island of its precious eco-protection (some of them are from the neighbouring island of Akhada) what has hurt Vanxim villagers most is that people from the island itself like Tulsidas Parab, Padmanath Bhosle, Ramesh Bhosle, Bhalchandra Bhosle, Amrut Volvoikar, Shivanand Bhosle and Kishore Tari are as high as their knees in the sand extraction racket. Bhalchandra Bhosle and Amrut Volvoikar own two boats each which shows there is money to be banked, and there are an estimated 60-70 boats that work the sand bank there. The manner in which a single boat is loaded easily fills up a large sized truck. Many of these Sand Extractors have provided the migrant workers hired to load the boats with crude shacks to live and no toilets.

Admission of Guilt

This doesn’t happen too often, the government admitting to ailments caused by mining dust, but when it does, you can be sure nothing good ever comes out of it. The Health Minister Vishwajeet Rane admitted that inhalation of inorganic and organic dust leads to various respiratory diseases like anthracosis, silicosis, asbestosis, sclerosis etc., all from ‘heavy mining pollution’ he confessed. Now, we all know how mediocre government medical care is and this does not include some of the talented doctors at the Goa Medical College Hospital for example. But did you know that the mining belt that has made billionaires of a few and thousands of villagers sick by contrast. The list of mine owners under the jurisdiction of the five health centres reads like a Who’s Who of Billionaire Mine Owners (see below) and overwhelms you with a sense of frustration. Because, compare their billions with the miserly facilities available in some of them which are mere sub-centres.

The List

Sub-Centre Kevona under PHC Quepem:

1. Salgaocar mine Chunimol iron ore mine - Sirsorem mine.
2. VM Kadnekar (Magnum), Sirsorem, Rivona.
3. Sesa Goa, Sirsorem, Rivona.
4. BH Mavani-Timblo mines at Columba.
5. FR Mines (Hiralal Kalidas Mines)-Fomento Mines at Columba.

Sub-Centre Caurem area:

1. GN Agrwal, Borchi Morchi Mine, Maina Caurem.
2. Salgaocar Mining Industries, Jalarwaddo Dongar mine at Maina.
3. Shaikh Salim mine, Devopan Dovongor mine at Kavrem.
4. Jairam B. Neugai, Tembechem Dongor mine at Maina.
5. Vaikhant M. Kadnekar, Bateagal iron ore mine at Maina.
6. Hyder Kassim Khan, Vangi Bhindi – Advana mine, Sulcorna.

Primary Health Centre, Bicholim:

1. Sesa Goa at Pilgao, Mayem and Shirgao.
2. Bandekar mines, Shirgao.
3. Salgaocar mines, Shirgao.
4. Bandodkar mines, Advalpal.
5. Chowgule mines, Poira, Mayem.

Primary Health Centre, Sanquelim:

1. Sesa mines, Virdi.
2. Damodar Mangalji mines, Navelim.
3. ILPL mines, Tishe Maina Karmona.
4. Timblo mines, Maina, Dingne.
5. VM Salgaocar mines, Velge, Kothambi.
6. Sesa Goa, Surla, Dingne.
7. VM Salgaocar mines, Velge, Surla, Kudne.
8. Bandekar mines, Ambeshi, Pali.
9. Bandekar mines, Velguem, Surla, Kudne.
10. Bandodkar mines, Velgue, Kothambi.
11. Nathurmal mines, Upper Harvalem.

CHC, Curchorem:

1. Anil Salgaocar mine, Santan Codli.
2. Pandurang Timblo mine, Codli.
3. Ahiliabai Sardesai mine, Karmona.
4. Sesa Goa mine, Codli.
5. Fomento mine, Cudegal.

This is not an informative list on mining information but to show the quantitative side of mining played out against these weak health centres because Rane admitted that precautionary measures consist mainly of chlorination of wells and public awareness against drinking water not filtered or boiled! On the other hand Sesa Goa announced a fourth quarter net profit in the last fiscal of Rs 1,215.11. The January-March period was up two-fold from the 2008-09 Q4 figure of Rs 548 crore. The company recommended a dividend of 325 per cent, or Rs 3.25 per share, for 2009-10. Unfortunately, none of the affected villagers (there are few in Goa for that matter) are shareholders, their only stake is the wretched government medical care.

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Politicians are about self development

2010-04-28T03:35:00.000-07:00

Egg or chicken?

What will come first, the much delayed Regional Plan 2021 for Goa or Goa’s Mineral Policy? If the former is out first, this government will fall and that is the odds on favourite and not all the income tax raids in the world will make Humpty Dumpty (read as in the seven MLA’s called the G7) fall from the wall. So, the Mineral policy will come out first because Jairam Ramesh, the Union Minister, has asked Digambar Kamat to impose a moratorium on new mining leases. The Minister of State for Environment & Forests has also returned all the proposals sent to him from Goa. Both decisions were taken under the provisions of the Environment Impact Assessment Notification, 2006. To make damn sure everybody in Goa understands this, the Director, Ministry of Environment & Forests, Dr. O.L Ahujaraj even shot off a memo, a copy of which was delivered to the Goa State Pollution Control Board.

Litmus Test

The Regional plan won’t be out because our politicians strongly believe in ‘development’ which in Goa means building huge, expensive buildings which is why the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) is planning to build a spanking new headquarters for itself. Because in Goa development is meant only for the self-development of politicians. And guess who will make a whack on the proposed Rs 97 crore building, though this is something that is very much in the air at the moment. Talking about air, if it gets down from there and becomes reality (or should I say Realty?) on the ground, it will mean demolishing the CCP’s existing building and constructing a new one. Unless of course, the CCP has the guts to take on the Army which has this huge plot of land adjacent to its headquarters in a prime location tucked away in the heart of Panjim which it uses as some kind of garage. The land belongs to the CCP. And if you still are confused over what will come out first, here’s a benchmark to help you make your decision. None of the 8,600 suggestions/objections made by the public have been considered for the Regional Plan by the people in charge. On the other hand, the PWD has signed an agreement with Sesa Goa by which it will acquire land for the mining company whose annual profits exceed Goa’s budget to build a 10 km long road from Codli to Panchwadi.

Should GSPC change its name?

The Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPB) has received 45 complaints from individuals on mining ore dust pollution between July 1, 2009 and November 13, 2009. All the GSPB did was forward the complaint letters to such authorities as the local police station in the area, the Director of Transport or Director of Mines and Geology. What could be worse than that? So, is GSPB confused about its role in life and is actually trying to prevent punitive action against mining polluters? It should consider changing its name to Goa State Protection of Polluters Control Board.

Notorious Public

It’s not only the people who run government and those that bring it down occasionally so they can sit on the throne that are greedy and corrupt. It is also those that sit on the sidelines. Show me a trader or vendor who won’t cream you off and top it with a prayer on how corrupt the entire political establishment is. There is a new entrant to the greedy brigade – Notary Public and Sub-Registrars. The Sub-Registrar in Vasco da Gama demands and gets Rs 3,000 per sale agreement he attests. The gratifying thing is he does not assess his ‘self-development fee’ on the basis of the value of your newly-bought house like the official taxman does, he just set his ‘fee’ at Rs 3,000 and has stuck to that till last week. Considering his rather large fiefdom which includes lucrative real estate areas like Vasco itself, Sancoale and further, this modern day feudal lord hardly ever looks up from his desk as he collects his daily plunder. He even pockets the change left over after billing you for the T-Form. Not so the Notary Public. These men and women across Goa look only at that line, that damaging line that reveals how much you paid for that house, factor in that unsaid black money (and experience has gained them much knowledge) and slam you with a fee that could knock you off that cheap furniture you find in every lawyer’s office. Sometimes you get a rather convoluted lecture (I was witness to one recently in Panjim) on the revenue loss to government which you are not supposed to understand why at that point in time, but becomes abundantly apparent in a flash after you are told the cost of that crucial signature.

Cashing in on river Mandovi

Aditya Puri, the HDFC’s MD stretched his banking experience to the banks of the river Mandovi in Ribandar just after the Chorao Island ferry crossing. Awed villagers there wonder what it takes for Goans to build such a huge bungalow on the banks of the river with a swimming pool thrown in for good measure. Further down the road villagers say a son of Anju Timblo bought out the erstwhile Camelot (the antique furniture shop) and is restoring it in a way only she can do, swimming pool and all (again), and with the gusto of all that experience gained from building her 5-star resort Cidade de Goa at Curla, Vainguinim beach near Dona Paula. But, can she restore our lost faith in her through the restoration work currently going on?

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Weighty Issues

2010-04-22T04:58:00.000-07:00

Going (coco)nuts over Assembly questions

Not a week passes without some central government ministry, state ministry, or the Supreme Court making some comment or the other on the justification of the Right To Information (that’s the only right you have in India gifted by Sonia Gandhi, the rest is all bakwas) or, whether it is really within your rights. Never mind the very essence of RTI, which I thought was your right to information. Period. But, look at the way your MLAs waste official money and time of government babus and clerks. The questions asked in the March Budget Session of the Goa Assembly literally and figuratively outweigh any RTI question that may have been asked across the length and breadth of India. By outweigh I don’t mean overshadow, I mean they truly tipped the scales. The MLA from St. Cruz, Victoria Fernandes asked to list the beneficiaries of various schemes of the Agriculture Department. The answer all of 1,549 pages, I thought, must have weighed at least 5 kilogrammes. What on earth did she want to know that for? Another question asked by her, more or less covered the same areas, with some deviations like whether the government intends to start new schemes; whether the government has explored the various potential uses of the coconut, other than for cooking (!); details of the support price scheme i.e amount given to various persons in the past two years for various agriculture produce covered along with names and addresses. Names and addresses, addresses! For crying out loud, what in blazes for? Since Victoria I think doesn’t have a beef with Agriculture Minister Vishwjeet Rane, she must really hate the department’s officials who must have spent weeks correlating piles of information to produce the 971 pages produced to the Assembly. Factor in the 40 copies handed over to MLAs, media and those with less baggage to carry, that was a lot of wasted paper. And many trees must have been cut so Victoria could seem earnest.

PhD anyone?

But was Victoria given the right answers? You will never know, will you? She wanted to know the list of beneficiaries who have taken the benefit of the support price for various crops (constituency-wise that too) such as sugarcane, beetlenut etc from June 2007 till date. Constituency wise! Now YOU would be within your rights to think she might be doing her doctorate.

Rane through the wringer

You pick, but the March 2010 Budget Session did look like suspiciously like a Question-Rane Week. Why would the Mayem MLA Anant Shet want to know whether the government has plans to offer the various schemes of the department to farmers cultivating their fields in property owned by the government or under custodian of Evacuee Property? Or, why would the Mandrem MLA Laxmikant Parsekar want to know the taluk-wise quantity of paddy produced in the last three years, the area under cultivation, details of farmers who have got the benefit of the support price –their names and benefit availed. The answers given went into 73 pages. There was this weighty question asked of Rane by Manohar Parrikar. ‘Give the number of referral cases from various health centres to Asilo Hospital and Hospicio Hospital,’ the question said. The answer was 9,967 cases. But the 195 pages really went to answer ‘give details with name of patient, date of referral and reasons for referral for the last two years’. Rane is also the Health Minister. But for lighthearted quizzing, this question from the Siolim MLA Dayanand Mandrekar, whatever his intentions were, must take the cake, bakery and leftovers too. The question put to the Power Minister Aleixo Sequeira was ‘give the number of posts filled by the Electricity Department from 2008 till date with details like names, dates of advertising the posts, interview dates and copies of their educational certificates.’ The answers took 575 pages. Class participation comes with a price for the babus and forests!

Long arm of the law

The Law Commission was set up on April 6, 2009 and a grant-in-aid of Rs 35 lakh was given to be spent till March 2, 2010. Here’s how it spent your tax bucks. Salaries Rs 16,24,678. Honorarium to members (sitting fee of Rs 1,500) Rs 1,11,000. Domestic travel Rs 37,189. Office expenses Rs 2,25,304. P.O.L Rs 1,32,185. Wages Rs 1,700. Advertising Rs 2,840. Total Rs 21,34,896. An extra Rs 11,42,528 was spent on its chairman. Breakup: Salaries paid to his personal staff Rs 11,05,339. Tour expenses Rs 37,189. Now Goa would actually not need a Law Commission if it had an Advocate General who could deliver says my friend Aires Rodrigues. So, was it created to accommodate Ramakant Khalap, its chairman, because then why the cabinet status rank for him? Just for the record all previous chairman of Law Commissions across India are retired High Court or Supreme Court Judges.

The first Law Commission was appointed by the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu on July 20, 1968 in pursuance of a government resolution dated July 18, 1968 to examine the Portuguese Laws in force. The Government appointed Gopal Apa Kamat as chairman, the law secretary O.P Garg as a member and made Tito de Menezes as its third member (appointed by the chairman). The tenure of the Commission was for a period of three years in the first instance.

Today, the two other members are Cleofato Coutinho and Mario Pinto Almeida, both lawyers. There is a huge task ahead of them, but of that later.

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VAT's Going On?

2010-04-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

VAT’s what and What’s VAT

That’s what. Most of you know that VAT (Value Added Tax) is the new tax regime that replaced the old. Some of you in industry know of another VAT regime named after the daughter of a certain south Goa politician based out of Circuit House in Margao, Goa’s commercial capital in addition to now being south Goa’s tax capital where a single window system at Circuit House caters to all the ‘personal development’ tax collected. Believe me, never in the annals of Indian taxation at least outside Laloo Prasad Yadav’s erstwhile Bihar has this kind of VAT been so defined and refined, to the extent tax assesses are required to leave their mobiles and pens outside the Commissioner’s chamber, if you get my drift.

This is how Goa’s tax regime works, but first let’s look at how it worked recently in the Taleigao plateau. A manufacturer got an order to supply water storage tanks and was informed by the concerned assistant engineer (AE) that if he was not paid a commission of five per cent he would reject the order; and, or, if the manufacturer did not supply the order he would blacklist the company. A kind of Hobson's Choice if you will –‘if you do not pay VAT your product will be rejected and if you do not supply, your company will be blacklisted.’ This rare to find tough-as-nails company told the AE to take a hike. Eventually, the supply was made and the AE still demanded his commission. You would think this irredeemable specimen of a human would let things lie. Not so. He kept pressurizing the supplier. What happened in time, I hope to tell you soon.

So you think you can dance

This ain’t about the popular TV serial -this is so that you know the Public Works Department (PWD) has Twinkles Toes too. The same said manufacturer the next time around responded to a bunch of PWD tenders worth roughly Rs 38 lacs.

What the manufacturer next heard was the familiar crack of the ring master’s whip and the waltz began. On the dance floor it works like this: first (step forward) the manufacturer was not allowed to quote (a manufacturer with a national presence only was allowed to quote which says a lot about the government’s BS of supporting local industrialists). Next, the local manufacturer demanded to know the basis on which it was rejected through a Right to Information request, as a result of which the PWD took one step backwards (see, this is part of the boogie steps) and retendered the process.

Now, the second time around the same manufacturer quoted around 20 per cent lower, and the PWD used a rather vague rule to eliminate it. Few in the industry knew enough to educate me on this, but it appears there is a loophole to crack the whip even on low bids in a band range of of 15-20 per cent. Mind you, the manufacturer was the lowest bidder in all nine tenders and was told by the chief engineer that it had to pay advance VAT (get my drift again) to the lady with the Twinkle Toes at Circuit House. This time, the manufacturer told the PWD chief engineer he could take a flying leap.

The funny thing is, the manufacturer’s rates went up just after the tender was announced, meaning that the PWD’s estimate price of Rs. 7/litre was fixed when prices were even lower. Had the local manufacturer’s prices not been raised a little before the tender due to the cost increase, the difference would have been 30 per cent plus. So, despite being the premium brand, the PWD feels it is too cheap. Its brand is among the higher priced tanks and if its quoted price was around 20 per cent lower, you as a taxpayer have the right to know on what basis the PWD fixed the estimated rate price. You will also be within your rights (those of you who have the courage to ask, that is) what kind of prices is PWD paying? Why is it spending taxpayers’ money and getting the lousiest rate for bulk purchases?

Not sticking to the straight and narrow

The picture we have is of real estate builders making pots of money after bulldozing (literally and figuratively) their way through Goa mowing down a hill here, converting land there so that some outsider can come and enjoy the sun and sea for a week every year. But things are not always that hunky dory, I’m glad to report. Someone in the business was telling me that a prominent builder does not get a walk-in just because he is has an all-India brand name to reckon with. Normally building loans are given out in three ways: the entire amount is handed over on the basis of an approved plan, the money is parceled out on a time-line basis in a way as to release the amount at different stages of building and finally, on the basis of construction. Needless to mention the last resort is adopted in cases when you don’t trust a builder to follow an approved plan. The prominent Delhi-builder gets this treatment “because I cannot trust them as they are known to deviate from an approved plan.” The building industry source tells me “legally they may be right but technically wrong and the latter is what concerns us.” So, now we know why certain housing projects that promised the sun and the moon have been stalled. And, why it is advertising, like the sun won’t rise on Monday morning.

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A Golden Opportunity

2010-04-22T04:33:00.000-07:00

All that glitters is not gold

It’s what Indian politicians do, acquire land and donate it to rich industrialists who never look a gift horse in the mouth, but the extent to which Goan politicians will go to boggles the mind in land-scarce Goa. This attempt to acquire land near Margao should concern even the worst cynic who thinks this is a good thing that’s happening. In this case, land is being acquired for Daivadnya Samaj, a society of goldsmiths which during the period when the landowners were legally trying (actual date: August 21, 2007) to prevent the acquisition actually failed to renew its registration which had lapsed. Strange but true.
What is even more odd is the fact that a certain Daivadnya Samaj member owns 6,000 sq. mt of land, a distance of about 500 mt. from the land that is sought to be acquired. The beneficiaries are just 15 members of the society but the golden egg for Chief Minister Digambar Kamat behind this bizarre land acquisition is perhaps the vote bank of the goldsmiths who are mostly supporters of the BJP. According to Pundalik Virdikar, a journalist and one of the two victims of yet another land acquisition scam, Daivadnya Samaj (registration no. 97/GOA097 dated 29.7.97) applied to the Collector, South Goa on August 24, 2006 for the 5,347 sq. mt of land at Calcondem, Navelim, Margao for a “community welfare project”. The figures 15 and 5,347 matched together ought to convince you what this community welfare project will end up becoming!

Strange, odd, bizarre

After considering every imaginable dimension and stretching himself to the limit, the Deputy Collector awarded the victims a compensation of, hold on tight to your armrests, Rs 45,567. Ok, if you are horizontal on the floor and still clutching your Herald in shock, the figure even now should read Rs 45,567 which technically has to be shared with the Margao Communidade. Now, Digambar Kamat I wrote in this column recently spent Rs 37,399 (April 2008-March 2009) and Rs 67,363 (April 2007 and March 2008) on refreshments to entertain his visitors at the Secretariat. Turn cold on the thought that your montris think this low of your inherited land and what could be all the financial security you have. Just to make your Sunday even more pleasantly miserable, do be informed that of the compensation award of Rs 45,567, Rs 11,411 was gratuitously awarded as additional compensation under two different sections of the acquisition act! I have since been trying to imagine the twisted, perverse, wicked sense of humour of those men who wrote that very mean act, and, why it hasn’t been changed since.

Earlier you read of two facts, one called ‘strange’, the other called ‘odd’. This is bizarre. Because, earlier the same land was being acquired for a government village school playground, but was subsequently stopped and the intent advertised in a newspaper on April 16, 2007, which means the two acquisition processes (at least) actually overlapped each other. Remember Daivadnya Samaj applied for the land on August 24, 2006.

If there’s money, there’s honey

Something’s fishy in the oft disturbed waters of Cortalim. There was the Bharti Shipyard minor tsunami earlier if you recall which the villagers, bless their hardened souls, doused after much betrayal from their MLA and the Chicalim sarpanch Raul D’Costa who was clearly behind Bharti’s plan to build a second shipyard. There is something sinister going on now if you consider that the local MLA Mauvin Godinho is suddenly showing interest in building a 10 mt wide road (where no road is needed) to the coast. When asked why so wide, he reportedly said that the road had to be wide enough to accommodate a drainage system. Now, in a state where building Ravindra Bharatis (one currently being built in Baina, Vasco, another on the Verna-Dabolim airport road of all places) and hosting the International Film Festival of India for which (Rs 1,26,90,578) was spent only on hotel accommodation) at taxpayer’s cost is legitimate if you stretch a point, a lonely road to nowhere sounds odd. Nah, can’t be, there’s no money to be made here.
But wait, there’s got to be a raison d’ etre. It turns out there is. It appears an industrialist from Mormugao taluka with cash to spare for the good life and whose heart was never really in the family business, wants to set up a marina there. Unlike the other marina rumours, this one is for real, which is why some panchas belonging to the Chicalim Village Panchayat (VP) are now (bee)sy rallying behind the Queen Bee to build that beehive (apologies to Mayawati, the daulat-ki-beti who got stung by the money mala not the bees hovering overhead), oops sorry, road. As one bee in the VP said to another, “See honey, there’s always money where the honey is.”

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Verna's water woes

2010-04-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

Verna, a watery graveyard?

It has come full circle. Mauvin Godinho’s idea of an Electronic Estate at Verna, since it was started has been weathering storm after storm on the surface. Down below in nature’s underground there is another battle being fought, this one to protect scarce groundwater resources. And though there is a so-called Water Resources Department (WRD) in Goa, it is always only concerned citizens who appear to be concerned. The people that investigated the depleting groundwater resources in the Verna plateau (Report of the committee constituted to study water resources management in the Verna Industrial Estate), among them, the Voice of Villagers/Nagao, Verna, came up with this. From among the 326 industrial units inspected by the team, it was observed that 192 borewells including two open wells had been sunk. That’s a whole lot of wells, while the rest of Goa thirsts for water.

Water plateaued?

There’s no saying how much water these 194 wells spout because the industrialists are as sensitive as your government is secretive, but it appears that it works out to 8,470 cu. mt annually or 23.20 cu. mt per day. At least this is what was officially reported to the WRD. In case you didn’t know, a normal sized water tanker that you must hire, because the PWD isn’t so spirited about digging borewells for your sake, carries 12 cu. mt or 12,000 litres of water. Keep this figure in mind as you read on. Seventeen industries dug two or more borewells. Thirteen more were seen around the huge estate, while the PWD dug another seven exclusively for the industrial units. Strange but true --the WRD sunk eight borewells to evaluate the groundwater table. Talk about throwing good money after bad. Of course, the WRD hasn’t a clue about the long term behaviour of the groundwater table. It wants you to check with them after three years because the test wells have just been dug. But time, just like water, is what the lower lying villages don’t have. But the fact of the matter is some borewells have been dug to a depth of 130 mt, others to a depth of 70 mt; and as a result there could be a huge difference in the groundwater resource levels.

River runs dry
When Siemens was prevented from excavating land within the estate (referred to in the previous column) on Monday last by Joao Philip Pereira, it was because of the fear that the excavation would affect the water channel through which water flows from the estate into the valley further down into Verna, through Nuvem and onto Cavellossim. In fact, according to him, the PWD is pumping water from at least one borewell to an overhead tank to Mardol village and selling it to consumers at the price of processed water.

Obfuscation watered down

The six-member team had on board two officials each from the WRD and two from the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), so all this comes from the horse’s mouth –the nonofficial members were Pereira and Edwin Pinto. It said five industries including Microlab, Parle Export, Siddi Vinayak (Kingfisher mineral water), Hindustan Coca Cola and Funtacy, consumed 469.11 cu. mt water per day. Though Hindustan Coca Cola has piped water, it draws water from the borewell on a 24-hour basis to keep pace with its huge demand. If you have been caught high and dry so far by the tizzy pace of the water flow, here’s a ready reckoner. The 326 units inspected consumed 8470 cu. mt annually (23.20 cu. mt per day). That’s what they declared to WRD, remember? The PWD supplies GIDC 561 cu. mt of water per day. This is as per the average billing of PWD to GIDC based on the last available 12 month period. Again, according to the industrial units which have borewells, their per water consumption is 3,073 cu. mt per day, and it is estimated that 1,380 cu. mt per day is sucked out through other wells outside the estate by consumers like Meta Copper & Alloys Ltd., Mardol Restaurant and Mardol Temple Trust, that sunk a total of 13 wells (these consumers are included in the figure of 326 units inspected by the team.) When you tote up the secondary figures (all officially declared) and discover that they don’t add up to the total consumption, this is only because no one appears to know what really goes on at Verna.

Mosquitoes and D’Artagan

Why should Churchill Alemao apologise to the G7 who are truly beginning to act like that self-exalted group of nations? Shouldn’t the G7 apologise to you instead for wasting your valuable tax money almost every week this year jetting off to Pune, Bombay and Delhi to meet Sharad Pawar etc? If Churchill must apologise it must be to be to the descendents of Alexandre Dumas who wrote that classic ‘The Three Musketeers’ which narrates the adventures of D'Artagnan after he leaves home to become a guard of the musketeers. D'Artagnan is not one of the musketeers of the title; those are his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, inseparable friends who live by the motto "all for one, one for all". As for mosquitoes, shouldn’t anybody who bleeds your tax money, not be called a mosquito? Churchill might have done his homework for once, because mosquitoes cause more human suffering than any other organism on this planet. Here read ‘human suffering’ as ‘development deprivation’ because thanks to those tax bucks going down the drain, you don’t even have garbage disposal among the many things you don’t have.

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Women's Bill or Women will have to pay the Bill

2010-04-01T23:18:00.000-07:00

Sao Matias’ women dumped

There’s an SMS joke circulating. It says the Women’s Bill really means women will have to pay all the bills henceforth. As jokes go, it’s funny. But this isn’t. For 21months now, (since June 2008) Tulsidas Kundaikar has been the acting sarpanch (reserved for women) of the Sao Matias Village Panchayat; Divar island villagers ridicule that he could stay that way for life. In picturesque Sao Matias, that of course could be picture perfect for Kundaikar. His longevity, thanks to the perfidy of some panchas began years ago because Sao Matias like most VPs in Goa mocks the Panchayati Raj system without a care in the world. Between 2002-03, the sarpanch was Anil Sawant; for the next five months the Vanxim (an adjoining island and part of the VP) panch Dominic D’Souza was made sarpanch, but was forced to resign later. Unfortunately for Kundaikar, Sao Matias was reserved for women and Asha Pai, was elected sarpanch till 2008 when she was ‘retired’ by Kundaikar. This time however, it was a little harder and a coup d’etat had to be staged and four panches had to be sequestered at Hotel Seema, Ribandar on the day the sarpanch election was held. Kundaikar even had a rubber stamp made later that says ‘Acting Sarpanch’ which in an ironic way (the rubber stamp that is) is symbolic of the shambolic VP.

S(a)o sad Matias

Things have changed these days in sleepy Sao Matias and attempts are being made to break Kundaikar’s cartel of four panchas (plus himself). His refusal to repair the roads in the ward of woman panch Luda Athaide, who is willing to become the sarpanch, cries out loud for change. The roads in this ward have been in a sad state for years while Kundaikar got a little used road in his ward tarred before the recent Zilla Parishad elections which some villagers say only exposes Kundaikar’s proclivity to ignore the Catholic- dominated ward. A resident of the ward was harassed by the Old Goa police after he protested strongly to the VP secretary about his stonewalling him. The secretary Mahesh Naik has been in office for five years and villagers say his time is up officially. The Director of Panchayat has stonewalled all written requests asking why fresh sarpanch elections are not being held; and also to reveal the legal period for an acting sarpanch to be in office. But, all the director says is an evasive ‘there is no support’. Kundaikar says Luda Athaide is not ‘experienced’ sounding suspiciously like the director himself. And you can bet he believed that of Asha Pai too, but who proved to be a good administrator. Kundaikar’s and Naik’s combined ‘experience’ however failed to prevent an employee of the Public Sector company Goa Shipyard Ltd from contesting the last panchayat elections despite directly holding ‘office of profit’. So, what expertise does it take to run a VP that routinely fails to avail of government grants; and has a development track record that reads like a huge ZERO? An acting Sarpanch, perhaps!

New Wave

Denied flat owners banding together could be the new fight-for-your-rights movement in Goa because the 41 men and lone woman politician are busy nurturing their pension funds and doing up their houses lavishly and don’t have the time of day for you and me. So watch out builders, something will crack soon. A draft action plan to form an apex association of flat owners is currently being formulated with an objective to get flat owners’ legislation. This happened after residents of Chowgule Gardens in Zuarinagar got in touch with their fellow sufferers living in the Jairam Complex in Neuginagar, Panjim. The thing to keep in mind for them is this government is one of builders and builder lobbies and apparently of mine owners too. That is if Parrikar who never, ever, provides the evidence is to be believed.

Stick in the mud

Driving back home after a Margao interview for this column, I spotted Joao Philip, that intransigent activist the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) loves dearly to hate. There’s always a story with him around for pain-in-the-butt journos like me. Animated as ever Joao, waving a GIDC stay order (dated March 15, 2010), was trying to stop Siemens from illegally excavating land inside the Verna Industrial Estate close to the main entrance. You – and you must from past experience – wonder why GIDC the root cause of the degradation of the Verna plateau, actually issued that order? It’s only because Joao and his fellow villagers forced the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and Chief Secretary to act. Here’s another mucky tale to do with mud. Turns out that the Margao Town and Planning Department investigated Francisco ‘Miccky’ Pacheco’s land filling racket in Colva village on February 2, 2010and discovered that he filled 1,350 sq mt of land to a varying depth of 85 cms. This of course was revealed only after the Colva Civic and Consumer Forum led by Judith Almeida opposed him. Miccky was asked to stop further filling and ordered to produce NOC’s, if any and there aren’t any, within seven days from February 25, 2010, the day he was served the notice. Why are concerned citizens only concerned in Goa?

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Travails behind a dream house

2010-03-14T07:49:00.000-07:00

Garden Undone

Battle lines have been drawn at Chowgule Gardens in Zuari Nagar close to the Reliance power plant where reps of 114 resident families took me on a tour last Sunday narrating a series of unfulfilled promises made by Chowgule Real Estate & Construction Co. Pvt. Ltd, a decade after it constructed the first of ten residential blocks of flats. Over the ten years as the remaining nine blocks were built, residents, some of whom (in the block called ‘Nest’) have gone to the Consumer Court (hearings are underway), and claim the builder has not signed sale agreements with them till now. Result: at least one ex-Delhiite had to buy a scooter in Delhi because he couldn’t produce a residential certificate to the dealer here. The residents think the builder did not get permission either from the Regional Directorate of Civil Aviation or the Flag Officer Goa Area (FOGA) for permission to build at least some of the blocks as Chowgule Gardens falls within the funnel area (airspace for landing) of Dabolim airport. This appears to be the thinking after the builder got a letter (dated 08.11.1992) from FOGA asking it to produce building plans before it undertook any construction. Residents say the builder has refused to show them any FOGA permission and therefore think this is one of the reasons why sale agreements have not been signed. FOGA however had no objection to the builder developing plots.

The list of complaints seems endless. Residents claim the septic tanks are dangerously close to the building blocks. This much is clearly visible, as are the shoddy sewer openings (most in various stages of collapse) built several inches above the ground level and not on level with the ground as should be done. Residents also claim they have no knowledge if the septic tanks open out to soak pits as is the norm. In the case of the Nest built in 2007 comprising 14 flats, the underground water storage tank has developed visible leaks.

Unkept Promises

The builder’s promises as told to the buyers and advertised in the website (copies of website pages produced to the Consumer Court) was subsequently revised and evidence of all this removed: landscape gardens including children’s playing equipment, round-the-clock security, comprehensive maintenance schemes, garbage disposal, including a list of other property management promises; and future plans that included provision of pool table, gymnasium, card room, library and indoor games. Residents say ten years down the line none of these promises have been kept, a fact that I could see for myself when they took me around the approximately 3, 500 sq. mt of open lung space covered with tall dry wild grass! The larger of these spaces distributed around Chowgule Gardens as known to the residents is 1,385 sq. mt, 630 sq. mt, 355 sq. mt, 130 sq. mt and 99 sq. mt. On June 28, 2008, the builders wrote to the Nest flat owners (the most vociferous of the ten block owners) pointing out now that the main entry road within the complex was a public road it therefore had to be maintained by the VP of Sancoale; that a (missing compound wall) would be constructed (not done till date); but generally evaded most of the 34 issues the Nest residents raised earlier –denying even that they had committed to provide the club house announced in the website. The builders even refused to commit themselves on the issue of providing accounts for electricity/water connection charges, registration/stamp duty charges which the residents claimed they had paid in excess. And the battle goes on.

Beware

Take heed. The next time you want a mobile broadband service provider, insist on a practical demonstration and only where you live, irrespective of the reputation of the provider. It does not matter whether the provider is into social industry or is up there in the market capitalisation hierarchy. At ground zero, it’s all about whether you are within enough radial distance of the provider’s antenna. Period. Take heed, because if you want out later even after paying a couple of thou, they are always a step ahead. Latest is, they have bodied together and will lodge a complaint against you with the Vigilance regulatory and Institution for national defaulters for banking industry and other telecom operators. So no matter how pissed you are over a particular provider’s service, they won’t let you waltz off into the arms of another provider without settling all their ‘dues’ never mind the fact that you never connected once. Your only recourse if you want peace of mind: invite them home and take it from there, diplomatically!

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Doing us a favour? Really!!!

2010-02-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

Conversantly anti-Goan

Seriously, have you noticed how one in ten persons Goan or, living in Goa is either an author with several prefixes you read about in the local dailies, the most popular being ‘eminent’ because local journos think a linguistic element has to be attached to said word ‘author’ or; is a social worker. Despite there being little or no evidence (visible at least) of their track record, the social worker outnumbers ten-to-one the author. And it has been said brutally that one of these authors has been stridently anti-Goan, though I must confess that I have not read his particular book or books. And though I swear there is no co-relation between that and what comes next; why are so many long-term resident Brits and far too many long-term Non-resident Indians so vociferously anti-Goan?

Proof of ‘their’ Pudding

In fact I am getting quite tired of Brits telling me or rather as they put it, ‘reminding’ me of the way Goa’s tourism industry is heading: ‘for disaster, mind ya.’ Grrrrrr. And here’s their indictment –well, at least the Brits think so, ‘because the Brits are coming in lesser numbers.’ I am also quite tired of hearing of Brits claiming to be experts on tourism, that they have answers, not one, but many, for every problem afflicting the tourism industry. Some of course make it look as if only they have the magic potion, the universal remedy as it were, they claim has been effective the world over. Ahh yes, they always point out to some world tourist destination and yet they live in Goa. To them I say each time: (1) “You don’t like the place, just leave. Why suffer Goa?” Or I slam this gem on home, it’s a real whammer. (2) Why don’t you try Hong Kong where the roads are kosher, the queues work wonderfully, the road discipline is brilliant, you don’t have Goans maids and the tourism minister won’t insult your sensibilities every now and then?” Then I drive in the knife, a double whammy, if you like: “Point is, can you afford HK?” See now, why it works.

Buggers and Beggars

But this pisses me off the most like 10 on the Richter scale which is all (this time) long-term Non-resident Indians and most (this time) long-term resident Brits think they are doing Goa a huge favour ‘by sustaining Goa’s economy with our presence and the money we spend.’ Blah, blah, blah. Poor buggers, they think we are beggars (BTW, I saw an Indian who lives abroad buying an item in Margao’s biggest department store and forking over money and telling the girl “to keep the change”.) There never is a discussion on how terribly boring the English Premier League is, more particular the hit and run play of Liverpool. There will never be a debate on whether Gordon Brown was really a bully as was alleged in the past week. Or, for that matter that murders per capita makes Britain the most dangerous country in Europe, not Estonia? But then it is always going to be Scarlett and the recent rape cases.

Lies broken down

Look around you, 70 per cent of the 3-5 Star hotels are owned by non-Goans who take away all of their profits. Yes, I know it’s so easy for NRI’s in particular to say: “So, why don’t you build your own hotels?” Yeah right, if it were so easy, why don’t you then, huh, huh? Let’s not even get into how many Goans are employed by the industry, which is why a trade union forum is currently discussing the issue of demanding that a 10 per cent service tax be made mandatory and that this be given to hotel employees. That I am told will hike a waiter’s salary to Rs 13,000 and that Mr/Mrs. NRI will make Goans want to work as waiters and not go abroad. I won’t discuss what else makes Goans not want to work in the tourism industry because that has been done many times in the past in this column and I don’t like repeating myself like they do. But here’s food for thought. The less glamorous mining industry, the Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association tells me, if you consider employment including in the vast spread of allied industries like truck transport, the barge industry, barge repair industry, other ancillaries like truck tyres, spare parts and even the used tyre replacement business (these are used to protect the sides of barges); its work force far exceeds that of the tourism industry. And if you think mining pollutes and it does, the garbage generated by the tourism industry is of greater proportions and affects greater areas in Goa than mining does. There is more to this. GMOEA says the tourism industry could possibly argue that the money generated directly by the industry (which apart from the taxi trade has less allied industries, and an even lesser number based in Goa) matches that generated directly by the mining industry, but GMOEA says if the money generated by the many allied industries is added up, this combined figure is a great deal more.
GMOEA says forex generated is in excess of Rs 10,000 cr annually which means the multiplier effect for each tonne of ore would probably amount to four times more that is generated within Goa in Indian currency. It says the mining industry pays the government an annual royalty of Rs 250 cr. Then there is corporate tax and individual salary tax, service tax, excise and VAT and export duty. I rest my case.

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Another perspective

2010-02-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

The view from the other side

Some years ago when a friend had gone to Pattaya in Thailand he admitted that his ears burned with the suggestions “to have a good time” made to him from a network of people ranging from a waiter, a taxi driver, the hotel receptionist, to some random guy on the beach. There was just no getting away from the lurid suggestions on offer for a price.

But sad to say, I hear that tourists coming to Goa too are attacked by touts selling sleaze. From seemingly innocuous suggestions to be escorted by a girl to a dance bar where you buy the said girl a drink – say a shot of tequila for Rs 150 – to an oily chap sidling up and asking “would you like a foreigner for the night?” A group from Chennai including a photojournalist are now convinced that Goa is a sex destination. So much for the tourism minister issuing instructions down the line to remove bikini babes from all brochures/posters selling Goa as a tourism destination so that tourists will think it is a family destination.

I’m told that the group was even waylaid on the beach, in their guest house, even a shack where they were having a leisurely beer by someone offering free entry coupons to some nightspots. For those who took the bait, they got shaken down for every rupee they had. Apparently, for those who like arm candy while entering these nightspots, the deal is very clear. One song, one shot and the girl is by your side. You want her company for another song, it will cost you another shot of tequila/whisky/ brandy/ whatever is your poison. The trick is also that while you get steadily drunk, the girl only fakes it – as in every “shot” is actually a peg of soft drink or even water – so that she is fresh to ‘entertain’ the next customer and the routine is repeated. So, do the math on how much she will earn after circulating for several hours. And by the time the shutters come down, everyone involved in the scam has made a neat pile! Mr Tourism Minister, are you reading this?

Maybe it’s also time to acknowledge that the moral fibre of Goa has not only been destroyed by tourism but also that some of the stake-holders in the tourism pie that are responsible for headlines such as “Goa, the rape capital of India” are amidst us.

Say No to Drugs

Our home minister recently declared – after a young girl from Delhi ODed on a cocktail of drugs – that Goa has no drug culture. This ostrich-like attitude by our montris for several decades is what has led to Goa getting a bad name. Again hear it from the other side. The owner of a prominent restaurant serving French and Italian cuisine in Pondicherry that draws tourists like a magnet, declared – “Goa has a drug background, Pondicherry has a spiritual background.” Is Mr Ravi Naik listening? Or for that matter, the tourism minister?

Sartorial Splendour

This reminds me of our Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik who tied himself in knots trying to retract his infamous statement that the rape of a woman “who moves with strangers for days together even beyond midnight” should be “treated differently.” Since that outbreak of foot in the mouth disease, he’s been busy with his job as the AICC’s in-charge of Tamil Nadu. After his recent visit to review the progress of party elections in that state, he was again shooting off his mouth. Frankly, with the contradictory statements coming out from different leaders about the existing alliance, his input that the ties between the DMK and Congress was strong just added to the babel. But since he seems to favour quotable quotes, here’s a gem: “In Tamil Nadu, unless a politician wears a ‘lungi’, he does not get votes. If he (politician) wears a shirt and pants there...he loses.” Even Chidambaram wears a white lungi(btw, they call it ‘veshti’ in TN). Somebody tell him that Chidambaram is not the toast of UPA-2 because of his sartorial sense but because of the sensibility and good common sense he brings to his job. Or maybe Naik was thinking of Chidambaram’s predecessor Shivraj Patil who found time to change his attire repeatedly and did not have a single hair out of place in his bouffant (to look natty for the TV cameras) while terrorists were having a field day planting serial bombs in Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Jaipur ….

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Montris guzzle

2010-02-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Things go better with …..

Methinks our montris should be poster boys for the cola companies. And everything is official about it, in a manner of speaking! With due respect to Pepsi, Coca Cola and our very own desi Thums Up who have spent big bucks getting Shah Rukh Khan/ Ranbir Kapoor/ Deepika Padukone, Aamir Khan and the energetic Akshay Kumar respectively to sell their product. In fact, I quote here another popular oldie line Coke’s Ad boys scripted: ‘Continuous quality is quality you can trust’. Nuff said about the makers of carbonated drinks, but I couldn’t resist this, because look at the one liner from the point of view of our montris on the Hill (Porvorim Secretariat) and it simply wouldn’t hold water, not a drop of it. Because where is the continuous quality as far as our montris are concerned and also the fact that you simply can’t trust them?

Your montris guzzled an enormous Rs 3,52,417 worth of refreshments and I guess lots of tea (also called the “cup that cheers” or “cuppa” if you are British) as well. Well a lot of undeserved others did consume bottles of it courtesy them and of course your tax bucks came handy. Raise a Thumbs Up to the Minister for Panchayati Raj & RDA who continued to entertain between April 2008-March 2009, as he did with gusto in the previous year (Rs 71,650), this time spending Rs 58,580. Bottle caps continued to pop and cha continued to flow in the chamber of the Minister for PWD, Science & Technology where the cost of the guzzle went up to Rs 44,990. In that year, April 2008-March 2009, the Home Minister spent Rs 37,937. The Chief Minister spent Rs 37,399. The Minister for Education spent Rs 34,227. The Minister for Tourism refreshed his visitors to the extent of Rs 32,321, the Minister for Water Resources & Forest Rs 28,069, the Minister for revenue Rs 24,779, the Minister for Health & Craftsmen Training Rs 23,599. The Minister for Urban Development Spent Rs 15,233.The fizz continued to effervesce in April and May 2009 and your political whiz kids or should we be saying fizz kids spent Rs 40,609 and the bubble cost your tax bucks the most inside the chamber of the Minister for Panchayati Raj & RDA – Rs 8,217. As well as inside the chambers of the Minister for PWD, Science & Techonology – Rs 6,138 and Minister for Education – Rs 10,291. Really, what goes on inside the chamber of the Panchayati Raj Minister? Grassroot democracy or is it just letting grass grow under their feet! As I said before their fizz is your fall.

An aside

BTW, with sugar prices going off the charts, cola companies have been told to import their own sugar. All these years, the aam aadmi went thirsty because water got diverted to make soft drinks. But when the government realised in addition to the aam aadmi’s miserable life, things were turning bitter for itself, it’s moving to plug usage. If nothing, UPA-2 would have the blessings of parents of impressionable children who emulate their role models. But what will our guzzlers on the Hill do? Nada.

Fence Eating the Crop

Whatever happened to the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat dreamt up by Dayanand Narvekar whose mental image of it was really to make it a realty habitation at the very least? Everyone thought of it as idle hope because only recently I too met yet another young person from Goa (this time a woman from Divar) who found work at a call centre in Bombay that pays her a monthly salary of Rs 30,000 and health coverage for her family: “Do you think I would ever get that in Goa”. You can’t argue this even in a daydream. Mr. Narvekar pushed through an outrageous scam that nestled between Dona Paula and the Goa University that was as outsized as its physical area of 2,47,525.02 sq. mt. The so-called IT plots of which some clever realtors had already begun to lay their grubby hands on, was planned to be on a sizeable 1,80,868.40 sq. mt or 73.07 per cent of the proposed IT park.

Gravitate in the Habitat

The green areas which the Info Tech Corporation of Goa Ltd made a song and dance about when I interviewed its overpaid director (remember his salary was increased to Rs 1,00,000 per month later?) was earmarked at 37,174.06 SQ. MT (1.91 per cent of the park) and another 2,47,535.70 sq. mt designated as area for ‘circulation, parking and walkway’. Yeah right! Imagine if some of the plotters (oops, plot holders in the Habitat) decided to take that literally and walk(a)way, as is done in most of Goa’s industrial estates, with a bit of extra land with the connivance of the Info Tech Corporation which would have learnt by then from the Goa Industrial Development Corporation that has mastered the art of turning a blind eye on encroachment! Well, ask yourself why 2,47,535.70 sq. mt or, was there sure to be another in-house developed route to encroachment? For now that’s all you and I can ask because as they say conveniently these days there is a status quo on at the Habitat. And so till the guys at the Hill decide, we won’t know the fate of a budding scam that was nipped in the bud.

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Only in Goa

2010-02-28T20:34:00.000-08:00

Elbowed out in Mapusa

Do you know why locals can never find a spot to park at Mapusa’s paid parking? It’s because the town’s Godfathers have given taxis the pride of place, and other taxi drivers who can’t squeeze in there, as an alternative, park in the remaining areas which you would think should have been reserved for the likes of you and me. Not happening, never going to happen I’ll go out on a limb to say. You see your cab driver here makes as much as his counterpart in New York --well, at least the fares he charges are the same as in the Big Apple-- so he can afford to park there, even if it is for several hours. Another reason you and I can never find parking space is because tourists in their SUVs often treat the car park as a rest and recreation area. Locals going to the Friday Market as a result are compelled often to park inside the Garden Centre building, a fair distance away and have to trudge to and fro with their bags.

28 days of work

Did you notice Panjim’s traffic cops making money hand over fist on February 1st? They descended on the city with a vengeance never seen before and they made a pile and were shameless as only they can be. And all the while as they were performing their sleight of hand tricks, the ‘regulars’ that is, the trucks bringing goods into the city were left alone as they continued like they do every day, to disrupt traffic which often has to wait as entire consignments are unloaded in the middle of a road. February must be a great month for traffic cops –they work for only 28 days but get paid for 31, plus those additional benefits just described.

Only in Goa

It happens only here. Many shop owners are back to insisting on a two per cent ‘levy’ on credit card transactions. Ask them why and they tell you rather audaciously that the banks on the contrary charge them a fee. This self-levied ‘duty’ happened many years ago, but was mercifully withdrawn. But it’s back. Whereas you can migrate to any mobile provider and still retain your old number, all done, at a mere transfer cost of Rs 19. In Goa, Vodofone at least refused me –‘wait till March end’-- when I decided to quit Idea which most times is as dead as the Dodo if not unreachable.

A hush-hush housing project

Pilar is described as a village that is entrenched atop a hill and hence makes available breathtaking views of the Mandovi river. It is the next frontier that will be conquered now that the coast in North and South Goa is chok-a-block with building projects whether they are hotels or houses. It’s supposed to be hush-hush but the paperwork is almost complete. The Radisson or rather Zuri Varca Goa White Sands Resort & Casino Goa is all set to start another project in addition to the two it already has. Pilar is the location and apartments is the project. Those living along the river Mandovi – all the way from Miramar to Old Goa – will be envying the residents in the new project at Pilar because not only is the village untouched so far but the view will be to die for. But why hush-hush? That’s a no-brainer considering Gram Sabhas have been reverberating with outrage from locals about the damage to the environment by rapacious builders. So mum is the word.

The taste of Thanda

It’s back to the Secretariat where all the fun (read: entertainment) takes place. The canteen owner up on the hill must be a happy man. Just goes to show, you don’t need a beach shack license to rake in the moolah. The Hill will do fine, thank you. Between April 2007 and March 2008 your Montris spent Rs 3,68,785 on refreshments only or cool drinks as they are called at any Railway station platform across India. To be honest, not all of them or their thirsty visitors needed to be refreshed. But this one is a real corkscrew -- they consumed the least during the warmest months! Thus, they consumed Rs 13,524 worth of refreshments in April 2007, Rs 4,848 in May and Rs 19,517 in June of the same year. But in November the figure was Rs 59,254, Rs 30,913 in December 2007 and Rs 43,787 in January 2008. Their consumption lost its fizz in March 2008 dropping to Rs 32,159.

The Chief Minister spent a lavish Rs 67,363 entertaining visitors, the Home Minister Rs 35,787, the Revenue Minister Rs 22,196, the Water Resources & Forest Minister Rs 18,751. The Urban Development, bless his kind soul, spent just Rs 7,539. The Panchayati Raj Minister spent Rs 71,650. The Tourism Minister spent Rs 27,510. The Minister for Health spent Rs 30,345, the Minister for PWD, Science & Technology Rs 34,101. The Minister for Transport/SW spent Rs 17,596. Another one liner to add to the shack inference made --if you feel thirsty, simply visit your friendly neighbourhood Montri up on the hill. That’s it for now, more cheer on this next week.

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Going for Broke

2010-02-05T03:06:00.000-08:00

The other side of midnight

The last few weeks have been quite an eye-opener. I rave and rant about Goa being sold to outsiders but they are not the only villains if you find a hill being cut or a field which used to have plentiful tamdibhaji now becoming a concrete jungle, or a block of apartments is mushrooming where paddy fields used to be. The bad guys are also the ones who facilitated the selling of Goa. For instance, the head of a financial institution who gives home loans says, paraphrasing the famous poet: “My job is not to ask why but to do and die.” In other words home loans are given on the basis of documents not on whether there was a scam behind the land on which a dream home is to be built.

Brokers are the other villains behind Goa not being a pristine preserve anymore but a state where even highways have been turned into garbage dumps with plastic bags strewn everywhere. The same guys who upped the prices to meteoric heights causing the real estate bubble here two- three years ago -- a well known brokerage firm told me people use to crowd their offices with the result that tables were even put on the balcao to accommodate them-- today are sanctimonious pointing out “quotation is too high” (earlier it was not high enough!!). Goa has not been immune to the recessionary trend in real estate – although a Chennai developer is all set to sell about 5,000 sq ft apartments for Rs eight crore with the piece de resistance being a diamond-studded peacock in the marble foyer of each of the 21 apartments. But what is heart-warming is that Goans – whether they live in Bombay, Bangalore, US, UK, Canada or Kenya – are back as buyers.

The cartelization of brokers

To amend former US President George Bush’s famous one-liner – They are all together or they are at each other’s throats apparently. They are all smooth operators but some hide it very well and confuse you. Like the one who could teach a thing or two to our New Age gurus and throws so much spiritual mumbo-jumbo at you that it is easy to forget that they can give tips to our original Material Girl, Madonna. Actually, the truth is that spiritualism and the business of buying and selling property are oxymorons by definition, but there are smooth operators who straddle both. And brew spiritual BS galore. Some even get you to hand over the fruits of your labour (literally, in some cases) , give you spiritual and real estate fundas (about African and American money, go figure) and nothing else in return for your patient ear. And if you didn’t figure that out, African is black money and American, is white. Who said we aren’t racist?

While some of these smooth operators gang up together to rob Goa of her glory, there are others who get petulant that a buyer spreads a net over large swathes to get the best deal. With land and buildings going abegging – someone very bluntly said “Goa today is a buyer’s market, not a seller’s market – the brokers bring out their bag of dirty tricks. One of them is to telephone a rival and bad-mouth a seller so that the former takes a potential client in the opposite direction. There are other manifestations of these petty jealousies which have the potential to harm a seller. For instance, tracking down the village gossip and getting the low-down on the seller as if his character will have any bearing on his property. After all, if he was a bad guy, it will be good riddance. But if he was a good chap, then he will be a hard act to follow.

Beggars can’t be choosers

You also have the arrogant client whose ego has to be massaged- as they say beggars can’t be choosers. So if he wants to tramp all over your clean floor in shoes that may have walked through a pig sty you have to lump it if he does not have the basic courtesy of removing his footwear. In fact, he refuses to kick off his shoes and says he’d rather give the grand tour a miss and you capitulate. But to be fair, most buyers observe the house rules with no rancour whatever.

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Stale fish

2010-01-24T03:22:00.000-08:00

Fish out of water

That’s us, you and me, the real fish out of water albeit in a different context here. Remember last week I said that there’s this scheme called the ‘Goa Value Added Tax based subsidy on HSD oil consumed by fishing vessels scheme 2006’ wherein an amount equivalent to Rs 6 per litre or the actual VAT paid whichever is less is paid to the owner of a fishing vessel eligible under this scheme as subsidy; limited to a quota of 16,000 KL/year for the whole fishing industry. Also, under the 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme called ‘The Fishermen Development Rebate’ a rebate of Rs 1.50/lt of HSD oil is paid. Under the VAT racket (can’t think of a better word considering the price of fish) the trawler owners could sink their teeth into Rs 9,57,40,396 of your by now much abused tax money in 2005-06. In 2006-07, the bait was Rs 9,54,38,213. In 2007-08, the payout was Rs 9,42,65,076 and in 2008-9, it was Rs 7,75,74,167. Now, that is a huge, huge Rs 36,30,17,852 blown up on trawler owners over a mere four years during which time the price of fish has soared like the amazing Flying Fish.

Unlike the Biblical ‘fish and loaves multiplication’ – at least that came to pass feeding the really, really hungry – our ‘rich’ trawler owners many of whom own sprawling and colourful homes and drive SUVs get to reap the harvest, so to speak. Under the ‘Fishermen Development Rebate’ Rs 39,59,000 was fed to them in 2004-05. In 2005-06 a subsidy of Rs 2,89,00,000 was paid. In 2006-07 the subsidy was Rs 1,50,00,00. In 2008-09 the subsidy paid was Rs 2,05,54,000. Now, here’s a punch in the pectoral (aka body blow) since we are talking fish terminology here. This particular subsidy works out to Rs 8,22,48,000 and together they total Rs 44,52,65,852. But then this is the land of freebies, subsidies and golden opportunities for bhaillos.

Hook, Line and Sinker

But this I think is the real deal. In 2005-06 the trawlers burnt up a phenomenal 1,63,88,317 litres of HSD Oil. In 2006-07 the diesel consumed was 1,62,74,165 litres. In 2007-08 it was 1,60,31,480 litres and in 2008-09 it was 1,71,95,560 litres. You do the math, is it really worth it, all that diesel burnt up, that is. Worse, did they really, burn up all that? You be the judge. All I can say is there is something extremely fishy going on out at sea and it’s all not about catching fish. What next? If the Fisheries Minister Joaquim Alemao is to be believed, and he said so recently, the Goa government will now subsidize trawlers owners to the extent of Rs 50,000 each if they fit their trawlers with GPS (Global Positioning System) which is to be made mandatory for the nearly 1,200 trawlers in Goa.

Sticky Fingers

It’s official. After the sellout of Goa two years ago, it’s now a buyer’s market. In fact, like some of the landowners in Nerul who sold their farm land to a North Indian who then promptly proceeded to build the biggest house there including a helipad, many land owners are now regretting their anxiety to sell though it made them cash-rich. Turns out, this broker tells me that a bunch of marauding Dilli brokers are actively selling any property they can lay their grubby hands on, to buyers in New Delhi. It works like this. They present Goans with dollar signs in their eyes in the form of an MoU that offers to pay an advance that is tantalizing enough for Goans, who apart from that Gulf job, know of no other way to make big bucks the easy way. The broker, who all this while has been pretending to be the buyer then rushes off to Delhi, returning a few months later with an entirely new buyer. What the broker promised would be ‘soon’ now turns out to mean many months later. In the case of some dumb Goans, when they eventually decide to sell out to a new buyer because they couldn’t wait any longer, they are hauled off to court. The loophole cleverly presented by the Men in Black (lawyers) is an equally shrewdly encrypted ‘grace period’ which is nebulous and undefined even in court. So often ‘grace period’ is gracelessly made out to be enough months to give the Dilli broker time to find buyers. When I last checked there was at least one clever broker doing the same thing. And guess what, a South-based builder tells me he duped a couple of foreigners. In fact, there’s money pouring in from the Hospet-Bellary Reddy Brothers who shorn off the brick red sheen of their iron ore, are now shining in Goa buying up land. There’s also this other ‘settler’ you need to particularly fear. You will know him when he starts to give you his spiritual B….. S….. . Believe me, you will know. But, do try really hard not to be that Goan with the ‘fate accompli’, because then even God can’t help you.

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Walk the Talk

2010-01-24T03:14:00.000-08:00

Touche’

A friend tells me that when she went to Paris over 20 years ago, the one pleasure she looked forward to is to smoke in public and not scandalize anyone. Since then smoking is not so cool and smoking in public is a no-no. Many bars in Goa have a no smoking sign and most respect the ban too, the exception being the bars on the coast. Gone are the days when train travelers lit up under the “smoking is prohibited” sign with casual indifference. Today anti-smokers are in the majority and will carry the day when they protest against someone flouting the law. But not so in Panjim, our capital, it would seem. There was this young woman who walked down the pavement outside Hotel Nova Goa in Panjim blowing smoke nonchalantly on Tuesday this week. She was a foreign tourist and should have known better. Even in Irish pubs, you cannot smoke anymore. So how does a tourist so blatantly break the law with impunity? When politicians like Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik and our own Home Minister Ravi Naik mouth anachronistic mumbo jumbo about how a woman tourist should conduct herself, all of us progressive sections get riled. But when a tourist smokes in public, we should get sanctimonious too. After all, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!

Our Hollering Honchos

Last week I promised to ring in Goa’s Walking, Talking champ. He is Joaquim Alemao, the Minister for Fisheries and Urban Development. In between April 2008 and March 2009 he mouthed an amazing talkathon that cost you and me Rs 1,55,601. Your man incurred a bill of Rs 1,63,613.32 between April 2007 and March 2008 using his mobile 9822188899 which is what I wrote last week. In October 2008 alone his yakking cost you Rs 40,348 and in July 2008 it cost you Rs 30,594. The mind boggles when you think he talked up a bill of Rs 3,19,214 in two years. The keys on his mobile must be made of titanium, the metal they make rockets with, to have withstood such wear and tear. His current bill talking to lawyers in Mumbai and to Musli Power (the sponsors of Churchill Brothers) over the Odafe issue, you can bet will go beyond mind boggling. But then in the land of freebies and subsidies (and I haven’t even touched the proverbial tip of the iceberg in this column yet, believe me) who cares? But, if you want to mull over where your hard earned tax bucks go, do Google www.freebirdingoa.blogspot.com, for past updates. Strangely his brother Churchill Alemao, the PWD Minister, ran up a bill of Rs 60,061 in the same 2008-09 period. In the two months April-May 2009, Joaquim ran up a bill of Rs 68,479. In May alone his bill was Rs 67,158. Among this band of brothers, one likes to talk and other is a silent wonder?

Police Conversation

Back to same April 2008-March 2009 period. Digambar Kamat’s (9822129339/9922508060) talking cost you Rs 24,984.40 and Rs 14,557.22. Our montris generally talked themselves hoarse. Jose Philip D’Souza, the Revenue Minister, had much to say. Cost to you: Rs 34,505.93. Surprisingly Miccky Pacheco (992102174) ran up a bill of just Rs 1,527.15. Now, either he stopped talking or Lyndon Monteiro, his Man Friday did all of the talking, as he is prone to do. But with the Group of 7 back in action trying to get a new chief minister, for your sake only mind you, all this light chitchat will be history.

Something’s Fishy

Politicians on permanent chat mode I can understand. In the land of subsidies, freebies and of plentiful opportunities for bhailos, I can understand when your tax money is prodigiously gifted to the wrong people. But in these days when it’s cheaper to get tanked on booze than to fill your hungry belly, what I can’t understand is the high subsidy paid to trawler owners. There’s this scheme called the ‘Goa Value Added Tax based subsidy on HSD oil consumed by fishing vessels scheme 2006’- an amount equivalent to Rs 6 per litre or the actual VAT paid whichever is less; is paid to the owner of a fishing vessel eligible under this scheme as subsidy, limited to a quota of 16,000 KL/year for the whole fishing industry. Also, under the 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme called ‘The Fishermen Development Rebate’ a rebate of Rs 1.50 lts of HSD oil is paid. Now why did they not think of that for say, if you wanted to get tanked drinking Urrack or ‘Jungle Juice’, coconut feni and caju feni. Because, from among the many other genuine reasons I can think of, it would help the dying breed of toddy tappers who risk life and limb clambering coconut trees. The really bad news is the subsidy runs into crores of rupees (the sordid details next week), but the sad news is you pay through your nose for fish, while the trawler owners laugh all the way to be bank.

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Mr No-All

2010-01-24T02:55:00.000-08:00

Denial Mode

"There is no drug scene in Goa. It is created by the media, by press people. You will not get drugs here.” That was Goa’s home minister Ravi Naik. Normally one would say famous last words, but in the case of Ravi Naik, any comment from him has a Teflon effect on him (And he has made many including the insensitive one that women should not wear dupattas after Mahanand Naik was found to be involved in serial killings and all the victims had been strangled with a dupatta). So, although former CM Manohar Parrikar says he is “unfit” to be a minister, nothing is likely to come of it. You don’t believe me? Look at Exhibit A – Scarlet Keeling whose viscera was found to contain a cocktail of drugs and booze. So much for Ravi Naik’s denial. Take a walk down Baga’s roads and I’ll bet the whiff of the sweet-smelling marijuana will assail your nostrils. So no potheads at the rave parties, Mr Minister?

But Naik’s made a career out of denials. Soon after a Russian teenager, Elena Sukhonova was found mysteriously dead on the tracks within hours after she was found till 3 a.m. in a popular Baga hangout, Ravi Naik said foreigners conduct themselves “irresponsibly” in Goa. Not only did that comment get the Russian consul’s back up, it also disturbed people in various sections of society. But the only thing he did not deny is Jyoti Dhavalikar’s involvement with the Sanatan Sanstha which was allegedly behind the Margao blasts. He, in fact, said police was investigating the fact that she seemed to be a volunteer at the sprawling Sanstha premises every day. But wait, is not Jyoti’s husband, Goa’s transport minister Sudin Dhavalikar, his bête noire? Different strokes for different folks.

No Denying This Though

The PMO is concerned over the cost of central ministers blabbing over their mobiles and has asked mobile providers to connect with it. Together they want to bring down costs so that the yak yakking of montris is not going to cost you and me big bucks. You can bet the PMO is concerned, and so should Digambar Kamat be. But then again in the land of freebies and subsidies, who cares? The Chief Minister (9822129339) himself talked up a bill of Rs 37,682.16 between April 2007 and March 2008 chalking up an incredible Rs 10,130.63 in November 2007. On his second official mobile (9922508060) he clocked Rs 11,866.71. Total: Rs 49,548.87. The Home Minister (9922508066), Mr. Denial Mode himself actually denied his vocal cords considerably. He didn’t talk between April-June 2007 and in August 2007 and incurred a bill of only Rs 6,192.97 during the same said above period. Incidentally, when the Sanathan Sanstha episode broke out, one journalist reported that he answered his mobile but excused himself saying he was “in the bathroom” and could the caller call after 20 minutes. Twenty minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, even sixty minutes later, he did not bother to pick up his phone. Talking up a storm is clearly not one of his vices!

The Minister for Finance (9822165611) cost you Rs 1,47,470.62. Yes, that’s right. His walkathon in August 2007 cost you Rs 65,944.74. Now August has 31 days, so that would mean he yakked at a cost of Rs 2,127. His continuous chatter in September 2007 cost you Rs 22,692.69.

Talking, Walking

Like the Ad says, ‘Talking, Walking’. But do heed this statutory warning: Copying them could cause you Lock Jaw. Still don’t you wish that all your Montris observed Maunvrat (Vow of Silence). Better still in the Himalayas! The Minister for Revenue (9922941761) ran up a bill of Rs 47,955.92. The Minister for Forests/Water (9822198009) ran up a bill of Rs 12,330.62. The Minister for Transport (9822180645) ran up a bill for Rs 42,816.83. The Minister for Fisheries/Urban Development (9822188899) chalked up a bill of Rs 1,63,613.32. His talking in October 2007 toted up a bill of Rs 50,020.97 which went from your tax money. He continued to chatter into the next month too (November) recording Rs 54,636.98. You would be right if you thought either of the two bills would set the talkathon record for your Walking, Talking and I might add Flying Montris. You are so wrong. Your walking, talking handsfree champ is someone else, so don’t switch to silent mode yet. Wait a week more.

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2010-01-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

Tribulations of the Year

In the land (Goa) of subsidies, freebies, and hand outs, while all you and I get is grief, and that time when Man and Woman of the Year are voted; my humble vote goes to you. Exactly so, it’s for all that grief you get and bear it stoically, except for the occasional rage you show on the road and in some government offices. I say some government offices because here your anger only gets you more grief. Reading about nurses getting a two-year paid holiday which they abuse without remorse, added to my pain. Seventy-four nurses of the Goa Medical College are on long leave that can be extended for two years as childcare leave, study leave and to work in the Gulf! Christopher Fonseca threatening to sabotage the alleged government plan to privatise Goa’s ferry services made the migraine worse. For god sakes, Fonseca ask the islanders of Chorao and Divar and elsewhere, whether they would like a sloppy government ferry service or one that is privately run. These people deserve to be the real candidates for Man and Woman of the Year. Find out how much the ferry crew have pocketed for decades by not issuing tickets to ferry commuters, money that could have been invested in building new ferries. For Pete's sake the government built the last ferry in 1999 and it takes damn years for the River Navigation Department to repair one lousy ferry, thanks again to your union’s inspiration on the workers. Here’s a suggestion, if you need work in 2010, fight for better wages for the thousands employed as contract workers in industrial estates and including government. These, government (the PWD especially) contract workers, in fact are members of your union.

Put the genie back in the bottle

Want to own a piece of Goa? Check. Want to buy into Aldeia de Goa? Check. That was almost the order of things for everyone who wanted to invest in this paradise. The spin went like this: “Situated on a hill, Aldeia de Goa is a project that sprawls over 140 acres of lush ... Aldeia de Goa is located in Dona Paula, home to the elite of Goa.” To further add to its brand equity, the architect for the project is none other than the well known Hafeez Contractor.

So, why on one day in this week alone there were three advertisements wanting to sell plots in this to-die-for piece of real estate in Goa? Simultaneously, the promoters of Aldeia have unleashed a veritable advertising blitz . In fact, this – half page/ front page ads, hoardings on highways has been the project’s hallmark right from the beginning. And yet people are selling. Strange. Is it because they are speculators so they bought into and are getting out so they can laugh all the way to the bank? Or is it because people are changing their minds after the controversy over the regional plan because expat forums (like BritishExpats.com) all debate about slowdown in projects because of the plan? And this has evidently scared off investors. Whatever the reason, one cannot help feeling that some of the sheen is wearing out on this project.

A free for all

What is definitely a relief is that unlike the last few years, there was no manufactured (mostly by electronic channels) phobia about a terror threat to Goa at New Year. So, domestic tourists – cars with registration numbers from Delhi to Kerala, MP to Karnataka, Rajasthan to Andhra Pradesh – jammed this state to take part in the revelry. Panaji’s streets were flooded with tourists going on the wrong side of the road, stopping in the middle of the road to ask for directions, and certainly, the younger lot on bikes (I even spotted an MP registered bike) have not heard of the warning “speed thrills but kills.” Women cops, who looked barely out of their teens policed the street, but who was listening to them anyway? They seem part of an unemployment racket rather than out to keep order on the streets.

Goans had it up to here encountering the mayhem unleashed by the unruly tourists. Our politicians tell us that tourism earns the state and its people top dollars because it is a much sought after destination. But my fish vendor, Philip, seems untouched by the so called ripple effect of tourism. He, shockingly, does not own a home (in fact lives in a chawl) and gets up early to get fish in Margao to bring it all the way to Divar. Why would he do it if tourism brought him revenue? The only tourism earners are hotels, mostly owned by outsiders who take their money outside and don’t put it in the Goan economy. For that matter check out the 5-Star at Mira Mar and see for yourself how many Goans it employs.

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2010-01-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

Government on Overdrive?

If they aren’t in the air accumulating flying hours, they are burning rubber on the roads. They get their kicks burning up jet fuel or petrol, it doesn’t matter which. It’s a ‘burning’ within them, just like internal combustion that drives planes and cars, to be able to do the same thing. It does not matter either if you have to borrow your dad’s official car and do a pole dancer act that too at the crack of dawn, if you get my drift or, simply put in an indent for a fleet of posh government cars. As the man said, everything is up for grabs in Goa where netas are builders, those who are not are money lenders to builders, are barge owners, mine lease owners, and hotel owners. For the high-born, for whom the International Film Festival of India that I have been saying for years was custom-made for the ‘preferred hotel’ at Dona Paula that the ‘newspaper you can trust’ endorsed this year for the first time, making it legitimate and public. And you can complain till the cows come home – they don’t care.

Revving up miles

To this end, the cost of driving around just 86 VIPs (all from out of state) in 2006, 2007 and 2008 made a huge dent of Rs 26,99,772 on your tax money. It seems anyone with a VIP tag gets a free ride in Goa. Details over the next few Sundays, but for the moment I am intrigued why Ujwal D. Nikam, a Special Public Prosecutor, keeps coming back like a charter tourist.

Perhaps to say a government on overdrive isn’t the best way to put things in perspective. Cars are fitted with the highest engine gear (overdrive) to economize on for fuel economy and to save engine wear; your government on the contrary condemned 390 vehicles in the past five years. The General Administration Department which is almost the government’s car for hire service, condemned 20 cars, many of which had clocked 2,00,000 km! In a five-day week plus the umpteen holidays, makes you wonder what they do to log such mileage. Imagine the Goa government’s carbon footprint and its contribution to global warming.

The Town & Country Planning Department which has a blind spot for entire valleys and hill sides that are gouged out by builders with the calm of a chess player, managed to condemn nine vehicles, most of its vehicles crossing the 1,50,000 km mark. Does the TCP have a knack of blind driving despite that peculiar blind spot limitation for hill cutting?

Funny Cop

Arvind Gawas, SP (Traffic) is the rare cop with a sense of humour. A couple of weeks ago he said pay parking would encourage drivers to give Panjim a miss, and as a result decongest its commercial streets especially. He’s back. This time he wants cat eyes on the center and edge lines of roads so drivers can gauge the width of the road. If he looked at the driving schools he might find answers on how to keep maniacs off the roads instead. As Dattaram (Mahesh) Nayak of the Jai Damodar Association suggests begin with Kamat Motor Driving School based in Chinchinim who he says declared to the Road Transport Department that its registered automobile engineer is a Sudin Prabhu Dessai. A driving school must compulsorily employ an automobile engineer or ITI qualified technician.

And Speedy Gonzales

But, the man he says is an employee of Chowgule Industries at Fatorda and has been for 10 years. According to Nayak who has been fighting corruption in the Road Transport Department, Margao, and routinely shoots off missives to the Chief Secretary; to issue a new motor driving school license, the official fee is Rs 1,000 while the speed money rate is Rs 25,000. To renew a license, the official fee is Rs 1,000 - the speed money rate is Rs 8,000. Learners license Rs 40 – speed money Rs 100. To issue a permanent license, the official rate is Rs 90 – speed money Rs 300. To issue a permanent professional license, the official rate is Rs 130 – speed money Rs 800. As I said last week, the motor vehicle inspector or ‘Speedy Gonzales’ has his work cut out for him and has a free hand from the Assistant Director of Transport in Margao. Latest estimates of speed money turnover in the south of Goa: between Rs 80,000 and Rs 1 lakh a month. Ahh yes, I promised you the names of the touts who chase with the fastest mouse in all of south Goa; they are Abdul, two touts with the same surname Naik, Raju and two Keralites whose names I don’t know at the moment. Surprise, surprise, the two Naiks are not Goans but bhailos who had their names changed. Even that happens in Goa, the land of opportunity for bhailos.

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2010-01-03T15:40:00.000-08:00

Files crawl, but babus jet

In a government where files are known to crawl at snail’s pace and some even go AWOL, its ministers and officers however prefer to fly at jet speed. These are more of their flying exploits between 2007-08 and 2008-09, this time (as I said earlier) giving the entire expenditure incurred on the junkets.

Sanjit Rodrigues, Director (Industries) – Thailand, China – 1,11,333; Dr Rajnanda Dessai, Director (Health Services) – Zurich, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,23,705, Dubai – Rs 81,020, Oxford, UK – expense not known as it was paid for by the Nova Nordisk Foundation; Joaquim Alemao, Chairman, GSUDA & Daulat Hawaldar, Member Secretary, GSUDA – Frankfurt, Lyon, Paris, La Rochelle – Rs 16,71,846. Never heard of La Rochelle. Me too, so I Googled. It’s on France's west coast between Nante and Bordeaux and is an interesting tourist destination on the sea. La Rochelle has an interesting old harbour fortified in the middle ages and a wonderful medieval core city. The cuisine of La Rochelle is memorable for its seafood. Aahh, Seafood eh! They spent eight days on this whirlwind tour and perhaps achieved nothing. This is possibly why? The distance between Paris and La Rochele is 470 km and it takes an hour to fly. The flying time between Paris and Lyon is 29 minutes. There’s the flight from Frankfurt to Paris to factor in as well, plus the flight from Dabolim to Bombay, then the distance of 6,575 km or eight hours of flying time from Bombay to Frankfurt. If only there was a way to find out how much time was spent working, if they did work, that is. But, if you consider they spent 192 hours (eight days) that works out to a blistering rate of Rs 8,702 an hour.

Then there was R S Yadav, Sr. SP (Crime & Intelligence) who flew to Vicenza in Italy on a 24-day official tour paid for by the Centre for Excellence for stability Police Unit, Vicenza, so his expense is not known.

Fruitful Journeys

Sagun Wadkar, member, board of directors, Goa State Horticulture Corporation (GSHC), Ashok Joshi, also a board director and SSP Tendulkar, Director (Agriculture) each spent Rs 3,49,571 on a 12-day junket to the Phillipines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. Total cost: Rs 10,48,713. While Frieda Barreto, the Dy Director (Agriculture) and Larry Barreto, Asst Director (Agriculture) went to Singapore. Total cost: Rs 2,85,000.

Now horticulture is a composite of two words, horti meaning grass, and culture. The only thing that makes sense here is that the idea the grass is greener across oceans must have germinated within GSHC, so it too went along with the ‘culture’ of flying and decided to develop its own strain of ‘wings’. Amen to that.

What is it about Dubai?

Dr Ida de Noronha de Ataide, Professor, Dental College – Dubai – Rs 80,711; Manohar Azgaonkar, Vice-Chairman Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) –Dubai & Doha – Rs 2,27,500; JP Singh, Chief Secretary – Dubai & Doha – Rs 1,47,900, Morad Ahmad, Chief Town Planner – Dubai & Doha – 1,83,070; JJ Rego, Chief Engineer, PWD –Dubai & Doha – Rs 1,83,070; VM Prabhu Desai, Executive Director, SAG – Dubai & Doha – Rs 2,19,801.
Prabhudessai, the blue-eyed boy of all sports ministers is a popular itinerant and even went to World Cup 2006 as he said to check out the stadia there so they could be replicated here. Yeah right! The cost of that trip that included a posse of four others was Rs 7,12,439.

And Down Under

JJS Rego, CE-11 – Australia & New Zealand – Rs 1,15,245; A. Parulakar, Superintendent Engineer – Australia & New Zealand – Rs 1,15,245; JPP de Souza, Superintendent –Australia & New Zealand – Rs 1,15,245.

Of Speed Money

The Jai Damodar Association’s Dattaram Nayak tells me that an officer of the Road Transport Department at Margao, MJ Walke has set the following ‘speed money’ rates for different categories. To renew the fitness certificate of a light motor vehicle, the official fee is Rs 300, while the speed money rate is Rs 600. To renew a fitness certificate of a medium motor vehicle it is Rs 300 and Rs 800 respectively. For a heavy goods vehicle it is Rs 500 and Rs 1,200. For water tankers – Rs 500 and Rs 2,500. Mini buses Rs 500 and Rs 2000. Big buses – Rs 500 and Rs 2,500. National permit trucks Rs 500 and Rs 2,500. To register new trucks and mini buses the official rate is Rs 600, while the speed money rate varies between Rs 5,000-10,000. I love the clarity in this man’s work. Thus, if the vehicle has no hand brake, there is a speed money surcharge of Rs 500. No emergency door for a bus attracts a surcharge of Rs 1,000. If a bus has no complaint box, the extra charge is a mere Rs 200. Ditto for a first aid box. See what I mean, no kit kit. There’s one irritant though. The touts and agents are mostly non-Goans and that means Goans are harassed because if you are a bhailo, you get the expressway treatment. So Goans are pissed off because it does hurt when in your homeland, you have to go through a ghatti. You want to know their names, yes. Wait till next week then.

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Velly solly no speaki English

2009-12-07T05:27:00.000-08:00

Great Will for China

In a country where very, very little English is spoken and where IT, at least IT-related hardware is mass produced, the scale (that is, planning, execution and investment) would be extremely difficult for Goa’s babus and Dayanand Narvekar to begin to even comprehend. If you doubt this, visit your closest vendor and see for yourself from which country ninety per cent of accessories come from. In fact, it is on a scale, which India, that has concentrated on software only, will never be able to emulate. All this makes you wonder what the hell our chaps do in China to where they fly rather frequently. Wouldn’t it have been more prudent to have travelled to one of the many successful software technology parks in India or, simply invite the consultants who designed them over? And by the way, MN Rao, advisor & director of the Directorate of Information Technology, whose salary was later hiked to Rs 1 lakh a month despite protests was tasked with precisely this job. And yeah, this is the same guy who in September 2007 said Goa would be the first Indian state to have video phones within a year. In the pipeline he added, were integrated citizen services, and knowledge centres in every village. Blah, blah, blah. Guess the Chinese didn’t take our frequent flyers seriously either because they apparently learnt nothing out there. Who would?

Peking Duck

Dayanand Narvekar, ex-minister, IT – China – Rs 3,32,069; RP Pal, ex-secretary, IT – Phillipines – Rs 3,15,632; MN Rao ex-director, ITG – China – Rs 2,15,867; SR Shet, MD, ITG – China – Rs 2,09,132. Total expenditure: Rs 10,72,700.
Susana De Souza, director, sports – Zhuhai, China- expenditure unknown as it was borne by SGRI, New Delhi, Dubai-Doha Rs 2,08,570; Altinho Gomes, vice chairman, GITDC – China – Rs 2,68,233; MS Kamat, director, GITDC – China - Rs 2,68,233. Evidently what Dubai does to our babus and montris at the helm of the tourism industry, China does to these chaps. Others would call it water off a ducks back.

Dubai Anyone?

Dr Joseph SR De Souza, chief scientist – Gutemberg, Sweden – Rs 86,827; Capt James Braganza, deputy captain of ports – Singapore – Rs 33,325, Dr VN Jindal, dean, GMC – Dubai – Rs 81,908, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,42,676; Dr Maria Prisca Silveira, associate professor, GMC – Dusseldorf - Rs 1,50,000; Dr NG Dubashi, professor, GMC – Dubai – Rs 81,908; Dr Wise Pinto, professor, GMC – Dubai –Rs 81,908; Dr A Khandeparkar, associate professor, GMC – Dubai – Rs 81,908.

‘Cannes’ Do Anytime

If there was a Nobel Prize for self-indulgence in entertainment at the tax payers cost, the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) would win it year in, year out, without a doubt. The Kings and Queens of Entertainment spent a whopping Rs 19,37,000 to check out Cannes in the two years (2007-08, 2008-09) reviewed here. And after going there every year, they still haven’t learnt to recognize Ben Kingsley although he won an Oscar for the Richard Attenborough’s bioepic on Gandhi that was made in 1982 and which Doordarshan telecasts every Independence Day!

All they discovered was how to roll out the Red Carpet which brings me to the point, this government should despite itself spend at least a tiny fraction of what is spent each year on the International Film Festival of India to roll out a layer (thin will do) of tar on the Ribandar road leading to Old Goa. There is no estimate of how many Goan Catholics (including pilgrim tourists) attend the novenas beginning November 24 and up to St Francis Xavier’s feast on December 3, but the number of those who don’t is probably easier to guess. Sadly, for two years now the winding Ribandar stretch particularly is potholed and this year was crudely repaired with an uneven mix of tar and stone pounded into the potholes with a hand held implement! This is the way this government treats the aam aadmi. Not so for the rich and famous at IFFI, which I think even this thick-skinned government must know is rapidly losing its Mojo.

Diwan Chand, special secretary, information & publicity – Cannes – Rs 2,48,000; Nandini Paliwal, ex-CEO, ESG – Cannes – Rs 2,48,000; Nikhil Dessai, GM, ESG – Cannes – Rs 2,48,000; Ethel D’Costa, ex-PRO, ESG – Cannes – Rs 2,48,000; Filip Neri Rodrigues, minister, water resources, vice chairman, ESG – Cannes - Rs 3,15,000; Manguirish Pai Raikar, member, ESG – Cannes – Rs 3,15,000; Nikhil Dessai, GM, ESG – Cannes – Rs 3,15,000.

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Flyaway Peter, flyaway Paul

2009-11-29T05:52:00.000-08:00

‘Flier’ friendly government

It has been some time since good, simple folks like you stuck on terra firma, got to read about the globe trekking exploits of our montris and babus which I had covered extensively up to October 2007 (flying expenses only) in this column. And I mean you being grounded, in a nice way of course, because neither do you get an insurance-backed health plan like they do in the western world, nor does the government provide you with flight-paid-for holidays; though government employees do get a pretty fancy dole called leave travel allowance. But then, they are the chosen ones, not you. Here are some more recent flying exploits of our official flying class in 2007-8 and 2008-09, this time giving the entire expenditure incurred on the junkets. Fasten your seat belts please and be ready for takeoff seated in what I would think is your balcao armchair I guess you can call your home simulator, because my friend, simulation is all you get while they get to do the real flying.

Have country will fly

Anupam Kishore, joint secretary (DMU) –Singapore –Rs 1,05,895, Dattaram Sardessai, joint secretary (finance) – Zurich, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,44,057, Dubai – Rs 82,000; Dayanand Narvekar, minister, finance/IT – London, Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro – Rs 5,14, 054; Anand Prakash, development commissioner – Zurich, Dusseldorf – Rs 1,68,254, Dubai – Rs 82,000; Uddipta Ray, secretary (finance) – Kathmandu – Rs 33,033; Alban Couto, advisor to government – Hong Kong – Rs 19,466; VK Jha, secretary (industries) – Dubai Rs 98,262, South Korea – Rs 25,816; Prakash N Dessai, chairman, GPSC – London – Rs 2,95,393; Agnelo Fernandes, chairman, EDC – New York – Rs 1,84,454.

Department of Tours

The Department of Tourism will not solve the shack problem despite all the official baloney about helping enterprising Goans; it will do nothing about keeping the beaches clean; provide walkable footpaths on the celebrated but much abused and battered beaches. Grandiose plans have been made at great expense by consultants from outside Goa and put on ice; by virtually every incumbent minister of tourism and Goa Tourism Develoment Corporation (GTDC) chairman has come out with some inspiration or the other. Some after expensive study tours abroad with their entourage in tow. Many of their plans you know well, as they have been well documented and oft repeated. These I think are gems, I think you might have easily have forgotten. Sometimes amnesia is good for the blood pressure!

In mid 2006, the GTDC said it intended to upgrade its chain of resorts to three-star category. With a dozen resorts, it wanted to add swimming pools to its existing properties along the coastline. Its chairperson, Fatima D’Sa, said, “We plan to make our resorts one of the best beach resorts in the country and create a niche in the hospitality sector across the country with low tariffs.” LoL (if you are not clued to SMS lingo, it means laugh out loud). Remember, the ‘Heritage House Scheme’, well all it did was inherit dust on some shelf in the tourism department. Or, a mantelpiece, maybe! So, why do our montris and babus travel abroad, which is why the tourism department can also be called department of tours? They of course swear these are missions to bring more tourists to Goa. Put that down as flights of fancy. But that’s Goa in a nutshell. Just look at the front page of your daily each morning. It’s all about ageing has-beens and mediocre actors, producers flying into Goa for the International Film Festival of India thanks to your tax money which these days is taking another whipping thanks to the galloping prices of your basic cooked-at-home food.

Flights of fancy?

Francisco (Micky) Pacheco, minister, tourism/housing – London – Rs 6,66,875, London – Rs 3,32,637, JP Singh; chief secretary – Shanghai – Rs 62,956, Frankfurt, Lisbon – Rs 2,50,794, Frankfurt, Berlin – Rs 4,94,981, New York – Rs 3,73,499, incurring a total expenditure of Rs 11,82,230; M. Moddasir, secretary (tourism) – Dubai – Rs 1,57,424, London – Rs 1,18,798, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai – Rs 1,40,046, Zurich, Madrid, Frankfurt – Rs 1,48,463, Shanghai – Rs 55,274, Dubai, London – Rs 1,75,652, incurring a total expenditure of Rs 7,95,657; Pamela Mascarenhas, dy. Director – Berlin – Rs 1,37,503; Arvind Loliyenkar, director of tourism – New York - Rs 72,738, London – Rs 1,68,997; Elvis Gomes, director of tourism – Lisbon 1,36,497; Anthony J D’Souza, officer on special duty (O.S.D) – Lisbon -1,64,452; Anthony J D’Souza, O.S.D – Lisbon, Madrid – Rs 2,14,749, VGS Navelkar, assistant director – Rs 1,62,649; Elvis Gomes – Dubai – Rs 60,943; JN Sangodkar, assistant director – Berlin – Rs 1,74,847; Elvis Gomes –Moscow – Rs 97,495; Hanumant Parsenkar, deputy director – Almaty, Kazakhstan – Rs 73,068; Elvis Gomes – Moscow – Rs 1,10,610; London – Rs 1,33,865; Pamela Mascarhenas –Lisbon – Rs 1,31,854; Swapnil M Naik, director of tourism – Berlin – Rs 1,48,852; Pamela Mascarhenas – Berlin – Rs 1,36,990; Francisco (Micky) Pacheco – New York – Rs 1,84,454; Sanjit Rodrigues, MD, GTDC – Sri Lanka – Rs 48,088; Shyam Satardekar, chairman, GTDC – London – Rs 3,06,381, Portugal – Rs 2,28,918, Moscow – Rs 2,07,197; Benjamin Braganza, MD, GTD – Portugal – Rs 1,69,818, Moscow – Rs 1,66,669. All that dizzy travel cost a huge Rs 6,41,5,033. The garbage meanwhile accumulates in hideous heaps alongside the roads and lanes that lead to the beaches that may have cost less to clean than the GTDC chairman’s trips to London and Lisbon.

Notice too, how most trips are to Dubai, London and Lisbon. My humble opinion is that NRGs might come from Lisbon, but tourists? So why go there to woo them when they will come anyway. And Dubai? Why? Is everyone going there to learn how Dubai has crashed world financial markets this week after it sought a six-month reprieve on debt payments that risked triggering the biggest sovereign default since Argentina’s financial crash in 2001? And London, unless it is to learn how to wind up Big Ben, why would anyone go to invite tourists? Remember we conquered that frontier, evidenced by the number of charters that land at Dabolim, at least 25 years ago?

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Russian Roulette

2009-11-29T05:32:00.000-08:00

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

The director general of police Bhim Singh Bassi and the inspector general of police KD Singh could go down as the two funniest cops that hit town ever (Funny not in a ha ha way!) Bassi defended the Russian belly dance sizzle (apparently Belgian too) at the new police station at Anjuna as not being ‘indecent’. Singh said he saved the taxpayer Rs 3,00,000. Then like Russian Roulette and having fired the first chamber, it hit them. Now, they had to fire all the five remaining. What we got was a ‘belly’ full and finally the last rather weak shot, BLASPHEMY – ‘going to casinos is like going to temples or churches’ – snapped up eagerly by Manohar Parrikar. Only he (Parrikar) got it right. What next Mr. Bassi? A ‘Full Monty’ at police headquarters to raise funds denied you by the Centre for a commando force?

Three questions still dog me though: why was virtually half the second rung brass invited to the m.v Casino Royale, why didn’t their families go along too, after all, cops take their families to temples and churches and finally, why did Yogi, the event organizer based in Delhi agree to fly down an entire troupe of belly dancers, who don’t come cheap in the first place, and that would include putting them up in an expensive hotel? What’s in it for him, or is Yogi like the friendly fast talking Yogi Bear created by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Nah, doesn’t happen in India. There’s got to be a catch here somewhere.

'Police Academy’ of another kind

It happens all the time. Non-Goans get to take all those lucrative jobs (!) going abegging at the industrial estates, though as you will see soon, there aren’t too many on offer. Goan job seekers and entrepreneurs seemed hemmed in from all sides – they couldn’t even bid to keep our police entertained as the Anjuna gig proved. Here is a list of industry biggies of the kind Aleixo Sequeira said would give Goans jobs, if only we let them in, never mind if they trample all over us. The list given to me by the Voice of Villagers, Nagoa, gives the number of ‘contract’ workers employed at the Verna industrial estate, which the organization that opposes any further massive and unplanned expansion of the industrial estate, obtained under Right to Information. Shockingly, the data reveals that 2,421 contracted workers (daily wagers) were supplied by 72 labour contractors in the two years to April 30, 2007 when the data was issued. The deputy labour commissioner, Margao stated clearly he did not know how many of these contracted workers were Goan. His office did not maintain a job profile record of the contracted workers. In fact his office did not even have basic data. The list: Ratiopharm -25, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -10, Cipla -20, Sanofi Aventie -10, Cipla -20, Cipla -15, Lupin -16, Glenmark Lab -20, Glenmark Lab -10, Ratiopharm -40, Ratiopharm -100, Ratiopharm -18, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories -15, Marksan Pharma -20, Cipla -50, Lupin -150, Marksons Pharma -20, Marksons -30, Cipla -25, Glenmark -20, Ratiopharm 40, Marksons Pharma 40, Watson Pharma -15, Sanofi Synthelabo -150, Watson Pharma -10, Erica Lifescience -150, Ratiopharma -25, Aventis Pharma -50, Lupin -40, Lupin -25, Watson Pharma -20, Sonafi Synthelabs -19, Sonafi Synthelabs -20, Micro Labs -25. The repetition in the number of companies is because these companies have bifurcated themselves for obvious reasons and deal separately with different labour contractors.

Don’t think these MNCs and big players would have added to their work force since then. They don’t because what the MNCs which have global footprints (including some Indian companies) have in Goa, are basically assembly line productions or they provide research and development. Their initial investments are undoubtedly huge, but these investments hardly open out to Goan civil contractors, who, if they are lucky only get some tertiary contracts. Don’t you think it’s strange too that the 72 labour contractors well outnumber the number of pharmaceutical companies, which goes to prove that the lucre is in hiring our cheap labour, and not as you are led to believe, in the jobs pharmaceutical companies provide. For the record, the deputy labour commissioner issued 1,149 licences to labour contractors as on April 2007.

(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

2009-11-16T05:52:00.000-08:00

The tsunami 'SEZ'

The minister most concerned about getting jobs for Goans by creating SEZs and his pal, a commissioner with a globetrotting devotion to WHERE Goans have migrated, besides a professed love for getting jobs for non-resident Goans; have another thing in common apart from their shared love for creating imaginary jobs -they don’t read the newspapers. So, I suggest to them, try Google instead, it’s easier, quicker and your broadband comes free. I discovered that in whatever nonjudgmental way you Google, you still get a tsunami of opposition to SEZs on your screen. I even tried ‘is SEZ opposed in India’ and got the same answers. It appears none want it, except the minister.

There’s only one thing you can’t read in the thousands of words written about SEZ opposition when you Google, and that is the fact that industry in Goa pays slave wages (Rs 103 per day) to its workers and that labour contractors purposefully rotate contract workers between different employers, so there is always a break in their service. (***Are the minister and his pal doing something about that?)

Calling their bluff

Remember the number of times Luizinho Faleiro said industries would be forced to employ Goans although we just can't seem to live on those miserly salaries, and the times Aleixo Sequeira said SEZs will provide jobs for Goans, or the times Vishwajit Rane and the Dhavlikar duo have also said that, also thbat Chandrakant Kavlekar is eternally confused between SEZ and food park? Well, it happened that the MLA Damodar Naik asked for the names, addresses and date of joining of all workers employed by the companies in the Cipla group in Goa in the Goa Assembly late in 2007. The amazing answer from Digambar Kamat was: "Details such as names etc are not maintained by government." Einstein could not have been cleverer.

Sons of which soil?

Yet, another question asked was to furnish the number of Goan workers Cipla employed. Cipla replied: "The total number of local recruits/Goan origin is 1728 (contract and regular employees.)" For the record, Cipla cleverly parceled off its group (you can guess why) into seven different companies employing 2396 workers. You can guess too that nothing has changed in Goa since then.

And for readers in the mood to Google, do check on a report I think was released in 2007 by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB), which sharply criticised the Indian government for offering unnecessary tax incentives to developers of SEZs. These incentives can open loopholes for tax evasion and undermine investments in firms located outside the SEZs, the report argued.

The ADB report added: "Some of the loudest political opposition to SEZ projects comes from the landless, who may not receive compensation for the land conversion and who lack the capital to become self-employed."

More bluff

In this same column titled ‘Living it up’ dated January 21, 2008, I wrote: ‘Goa's flying circus will never let you down because they don't suffer from jet lag. They just keep flying. The Commissioner for NRI affairs Eduardo Faleiro spent Rs 86,691 on trips to Kuwait and Qatar in November 2007. The Director, NRI Affairs UD Kamat spent Rs 66,930 on the same junket and Rs 58,807 in June 2007 to fly to Lisbon. The Chairman, Overseas Employment Agency of Goa VAdm John D'Silva spent Rs 66,930 on the Kuwait and Qatar junket. Evidently not satisfied with their efforts abroad they looked towards the homeland too. Faleiro spent Rs 3,64,535 to travel within India, while D'Silva spent Rs 78,566 and Kamat spent Rs 1,03,933.’
I have some more information (total cost this time) now on those junkets. Kamat spent Rs 1,43,037 on his seven day junket to Portugal via Frankfurt, He spent Rs 1,94,479 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 1,75,738 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 1,97,090 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya and Rs 2,33,364 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 9,43,708. Faleiro spent Rs 4,52,272 for nine days in Kuwait and Qatar, Rs 5,22,905 for nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain, Rs 6,84,735 over 11 days in Mozambique and Kenya, and Rs 8,89,514 over ten days in Canada. Total: Rs 25,49,426. D’Silva spent Rs 1,36,267 over nine days in Oman, UAE and Bahrain and Rs 1,70,775 over nine days in Kuwait and Qatar. Total: Rs 3,070,42. Grand total: Rs 38,00,176. And so after yet another extravaganza the two-day ‘Fourth Global Goan Convention’ held on November 5-7 at Muscat and yet another strident call for ‘self-employment for NRGs”, do you see any job opportunities on the horizon? And for crying out loud, will one of you this time do the leg work and seek the expenditure of this one under Right to Information and pass it on to me. Honestly, I am tiring of doing this on my ownsome lonesome. Call 2280935/9822152164.

(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

2009-11-16T05:20:00.000-08:00

Oath of Hypocrites

The Hippocratic Oath generally spelt out how doctors should ethically practice their trade. But, you should know that I intentionally avoided using the word medicine. That was in another millennium. Times have changed. There is a new ‘oath’ that offers doctors commissions that incredibly a Margao-based hospital published, without a care in the world, which is how I have a copy. If Hippocrates were to come alive out of the blue, my diagnosis tells me he would have gone prostrate equally swiftly and would have to be wheeled swiftly into the ICU. The commissions this private hospital offers speaks for itself.

Laparoscopic surgery
Gall stones surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; laparoscopic appendix Rs 12,000, Rs 1,500; laparoscopic hernia Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500.

Cancer
Ca breast surgery -cost Rs 20,000, doctors commission Rs 2,500; thyroid Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000, Ca colon stomach Rs 25,000, Rs 3,500.

Urology
PCNL (kidney stone) surgery -cost Rs 25,000, doctors commission Rs 3,500; URS (ureteric stones) Rs 15,000, Rs 2,500; TRUP (prostate) Rs 20,000, Rs 3,000; bladder stone Rs 10,000, Rs 1,500.

Gyneacology
LAP hysterectomy(hyst) surgery -cost Rs 30,000, doctors commission Rs 3,000; Lap myomectomy Rs 30,000, Rs 3,000; Diag hyst + lap for infertility Rs 10,000; Rs 1,000; open hyst Rs 20,000, Rs 2,500; open myomectomy Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; LAP for cyst, ectopic pregnancy, adhesiolysis Rs 20,000, Rs 2,000; hysteroscopic procedures fibroid Rs 15,000, Rs 1,500.

Physician heal they self

So far, the central government’s efforts to curb bribing doctors have been like giving the fox the job of guarding the henhouse, despite the fact that more than a quarter of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) account for 70% of the drug market in India and who are subsidiaries of companies that have been penalised in the US for illegally promoting various drugs through inducement. Recently, Pfizer was fined $2.3 billion in one of the biggest healthcare fraud settlements. It wined and dined doctors sending them on exotic trips. Eli Lilly was fined $1.42. Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has reserved $400 million to settle charges of promoting unapproved use of drugs and of kickbacks to doctors related to several products. Bristol-Myers Squibb was fined $515 million in 2007. There’s more to this.
The huge profit margins on drugs big pharma companies make, to all intents and purposes, allow them to effectively bribe doctors. In fact, small-scale manufacturers of drugs have always maintained that drug prices can easily be brought down 50 per cent. But if big pharmas did that, would they have the money to bribe doctors, which includes sending them on holidays abroad and in India?

Healing or self-healing

A doctor told me a rep of a Chennai-based pharmaceutical company (name withheld) whom he described as ‘paan chewing and looking more like a thug’ offered him free encyclopaedias to begin with (he was starting out his practice) and a laptop next. The rep’s complaint was that pharmacies in his jurisdiction in Tiswadi were not prescribing his company’s drugs. A representative of an ethical pharma company said he received complaints from doctors of bribes being offered. Pharmaceutical companies pressurize pharmacies to sell their drugs, even if a doctor prescribes another drug; which is precisely why you never seem to get the drug you were prescribed. Which is why, often what should be a quick visit to the family doctor turns into a merry-go-round if you dare insist on every letter of the word on your prescription.

‘Vitamin M’ is also administered by a certain hospital into the veins of your traffic cops and the 108 ambulance service, to ‘induce’ them to rush trauma patients to the hospital. Breaking the Hippocratic Oath in Calangute and the coastal tourist belt extends to bribing hotel staff and taxi drivers to become ‘inclined’ towards certain private clinics, especially one near Mapusa, and particularly dental clinics.

A friend who got an attack of gastritis in the night at a resort in Anjuna had to shell out Rs 800 as doctors’ fees. The irony was that the resort owner was a friend whose friend the doctor was! This particular doctor makes a killing (quite literally) by preying on foreign tourists at resorts!

Government in intensive care

Sent there by the mushrooming of private hospitals, the government sees to it that all the major hospicios, including the health centres, are virtually redundant. The common refrain of doctors is ‘we are short of drugs and consumables.’ The Corlim health centre, built in a remote part of the village, is as a result, barely accessible.

(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

2009-11-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

Cock and Bull stories

‘Pay parking is the need of the hour, since parking is free everybody brings four wheelers to the cities, mostly shopkeepers and businessmen, who park their vehicles for the whole day,’ said Arvind Gawas, SP to Herald. Let’s not even bother to dissect the absurdity of his argument, because a mere Rs 5 per hour isn’t going to convince car owners to pass up Panjim nor is the per hour rate going to deter traders who will simply pass it on to the unwitting consumer. But really, what Gawas needs to do expeditiously is to ban vehicles including mobile food vendors entering 18th June Road and instead convert it into a shoppers’ promenade (pedestrian only street) which has successfully been done the world over. I am sure our touring montris and babus have had the pleasure (courtesy your tax money of course) of seeing them on several occasions. In March this year shoppers and non-shoppers overwhelmingly voted in a survey to make Bangalore’s hugely popular Commercial Street a pedestrian zone. It’s not been done yet, but Bangalore is getting there. But for baloney, Gawas gets the month’s Emmy for outstanding gibberish beating the transport and river navigation minister’s rubbish on introducing a Ro-Ro ferry service between Agassaim and Cortalim on a build-operate basis. The other contender is this hair-brained idea of a link between Dona Paula and Mormugao port. This, like the Mopa airport, will never happen, but here’s a hint to the officials who went on a junket and returned awed by the Rs 1,600 cr Bandra-Worli sea link.

Saved! 20 minutes

Autocar recently tested the Sea Link and the traditional Mahim-Prabhadevi route in two Maruti Swifts. Their drivers took off from the domestic airport at 9.30 am sharp, joining the rush hour traffic heading to the Trident Hotel at Nariman Point. One Swift took the Sea Link and the other the Mahim-Prabhadevi route. The magazine’s verdict: the Sea Link proved to be longer and cost Rs 50 one way in toll, and it only saved 20 minutes in time. Not even India Inc starts board meetings on time. Mumbai, a metro bigger in size than Goa and with several times more vehicles than Goa’s population, might have decongested a fraction of its traffic congestion (In March 2007 it had 1,21,70,991 vehicles of which 85,73,679 were two wheelers, 7,00,356were trucks, 64,357 were buses, 1,33,309 were taxis 5,55,118 were autorickshaws.) But, what’s in it for Goa? Also, any Mumbaite will tell you that the Worli exit hits the sea face road at a right angle and is the only bottleneck in an otherwise smooth drive. Shift to Dona Paula which is already a bottleneck –that’s why I said hare-brained. Shift to Mormugao/Vasco where the almost the entire shore line belongs to the Mormugao Port Trust, Goa Shipyard and the Indian Navy … well, even more hare- brained. Aah yes, but then, our politicians do tend to rush off like the hare that nature bestowed very little brain power to.

Don’t rock the boat

As for the Ro-Ro idea, I foresee every industrial estate within miles and industry body protesting the idea for the simple reason that it will up transportation costs, leave alone the fact that there are several unknown entities like; river draft conditions, profitability break even per trip and whether a long vessel of this kind fits into the scheme of things.

Hares and hounds

The hares and hounds race, the game of chase in which one group of players, the hounds, follows a trail of scraps of paper left by another group, the hares, and tries to catch them before they reach a designated point. This is what it has been like chasing the hounds (those who waste our tax money) all these years. Or, do you feel like the hare sometimes, chasing the scraps thrown at you? Nuff said. Your montris (including Subodh Kantak, the government’s attorney general) spent Rs 1,35,778 between April and June 2009 living in hotels in New Delhi. But, what was Luizinho Faleiro, a non-montri, doing at Hotel Shangri la (expenditure: Rs 25,781) between June 8-10. Yeah, who cares? The austerity mantra is not for our montris. You can’t stop the juggernaut on wheels.

(Feedback 2280935, 9822152164 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

2009-10-16T02:15:00.000-07:00

Walk the talk

Last Friday morning, they had to be the most resilient lot in Goa, because you can’t be more hardy than the Friday Mapusa market vendors, who, braving the punishing, pouring rain, covered their wares, and waited, glumly for the more foolhardy buyer like me to come wading along. Even the woman selling rock salt was there, so were some of the plant sellers, who perhaps lost more plants to the flooding waters, than they sold. Truly, it was a wretched Friday, and made me want to call up the editors of magazines who have serially voted Goa as the best and most trendy place to be in. My point, you ask? Our montris need to walk along this path too, literally. They live in glass houses, pretending to be concerned about people’s welfare, and waiting to pounce like vipers on opportunities that come their way. And, it’s not always about making money. It is also about the opportunity to stay in power for another term. Like the issue Mr. Atanasio Monserrate a.k.a ‘Babush’ picked, that is, he said the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat could reoccupy its home in Dona Paula if the ‘B’ Company boys at the Taleigao panchayat were to get a one-time ‘compensation’ of Rs 2 crore; and all the house tax accrued from the parked be parked in the panchayat. So, screw the sentiments of the people of Taleigao (the rest of Goa included) who fought hard to stop, what can accurately be called a hoax of ‘concrete’ proportions, if you get my drift. What next Mr. Monserrate? Tax Goans for setting their eyes on what is left of the tambdi bhaji fields before they join the rest of the concrete jungle that was once beautiful Caranzalem?

But, not this way

Remember all the tax money spent to perk up the already stately homes of our montris, Dayanand Narvekar included, despite the fact he was struck of the privileged list, albeit temporarily. Here’s more on our nawabs and their princely perks, which brings me to a point I should have made a long time ago in this column. Pandurang Madkaikar, the Prince of Cumburjua, is the only one I know who when in power, hasn’t been lavish with your tax money. And, that’s saying a lot these days. This week it’s the turn of Ramkrishna Dhavlikar, who spent just Rs 28,924.65 of your tax money perking up his official bungalow. Dhavlikar, among one half of the Band of Brothers) is the man with the thing for vanishing high security number plates that cost a bomb, and I still wonder why you protest so much. Never mind the cost dumbo, your registration plate car just turned stealth with his help. The Indian Navy has stealth warships, and you have a stealth car now that evades police radar. Go get it. You won’t regret it.
Mr. Ravi Naik, the home minister, spent Rs 1,44,399.13 to do up his official bungalow and it went like this. Rs 7,900 on a steel cupboard, Rs 23,000 on a washing machine. For the rest, read on.

Movers and packers

Apparently spartan in the luxury area, Mr. Naik however showed a huge preference for handy items and splurged your tax money on exactly 86 categories of items. And, I make this point again. What the heck happened to all replaced items? I mean who takes away old refrigerators, washing machines and cooking stoves every time new ones are bought? And then, Mr. Naik decides to change residence. So, what does he do? He simply goes shopping again. Remember, the man who strangely as home minister licensed all the floating casinos on the Mandovi, had earlier spent Rs 5,25,185 of your tax bucks to paint another bungalow where he also installed a FRP (fibre reinforced plastic) cabin costing Rs 1,07,342, but then shifted residence on October 21, 2007 to the bungalow called ‘Herambh’.

Unhealthy trend

This Tuesday, health minister Vishwajeet Rane came calling to Divar after the islanders demanded a public health centre. And were they surprised! Not by his visit silly, but by his insistence that Divar must provide suitable accomodation for the centre and its staff. So, the islanders are asking (in private of course) ‘why do we need you then. And, isn’t? your government the expert on acquiring huge land at the drop of a hat even if it is to build stadiums that none will use eventually?’ As they say, GOOD QUESTION.

(Feedback 6658606, 9763718501 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

2009-10-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

The real thing

I was traveling last week to Pondichery and as a result had to miss out, albeit temporarily, on how your montris think your tax money collection is their personal ‘piggy bank’. Fortunately for me and writing this column, it matters little where in India you are, to be reminded about the misfortune we endure having our 42 elected peoples’ representatives working for us. More exactly, when you are in Chennai, where for instance, you can feel how Information Technology was made to work for the people. Whereas, in Goa it took a single MLA to make IT work for him, and for his pockets only. I am talking about the Rajiv Gandhi IT Park in posh Dona Paula where real estate sharks were encouraged to park themselves.

Two more universities in Tamil Nadu, I read in the newspapers, are working micro-satellites for a possible launch by end-2009. I am told they were encouraged by ANUSAT, India’s first ever micro satellite built by Anna University, Chennai, and launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) last April from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. The project’s team operated from the College of Engineering, Guindy and MIT, Chromepet, both in Chennai. Contrast this with the miserable performance of our own engineering colleges and the government’s attempt not too long ago to acquire land belonging to the Goa University, and no guesses on whom this high value land would have been sold to for mere peanuts.

Besides this, a group of students from engineering colleges in Bangalore and Hyderabad is working on an 850 gm pico satellite under ISRO guidance. Bottomline: Whereas, IT in Goa means real estate in the three southern States it means inventing the more difficult-to-make micro satellites which requires miniature technology. Just to make you squirm a bit more, do be informed that I booked my Volvo AC BUS travel to Pondicherry from Chennai online, which meant I had to make only a single trip to the bus station (to actually catch the bus). Compare this to the rumbunctious behaviour of the touts operating at Patto in Panjim, or KTC’s sleepy counters in Margao and Panjim. Or, be really crushed by this September 19 headline “First heart transplant at GH”. The story was about the Chennai Government General Hospital’s first ever heart transplant! In Goa, the last eye-catching headlines (from GMC) were about dirty linen and falling ceiling fans. I’ll say we have a long way to go, baby!

The other man’s grass is always green

But this is not to say everything is hunky dory outside. In fact, as in Goa, so too in Pondicherry (btw, official name is Puducherry), it’s a foreign takeover when it comes to business. And therefore, for instance, tourism in Pondy has made even its juice and bread cost an arm and a leg and the perpetrators of this fraud are some locals but mostly foreigners who run cafes, restaurants and are even real estate agents. I ran into this helpful young American girl who has moved to Pondy some months ago and runs a diner in rue Labordanais, serving breakfast and juice. After tramping around the Latin Quarter of Pondy – which, incidentally, is mostly clean but for some piles of garbage in certain streets – I was thirsty and parked myself in her diner and ordered a mango juice. Visions of a thirst-quenching fresh fruit juice filled my mind but imagine my shock when she returned in a jiffy with a glass of tinned mango juice!! I was awed – outraged is more like it – when she charged me Rs 60. The con job was repeated on another thirsty idiot – Rs 60 for a glass of orange juice that came from a tetrapack, the kind you see crammed in super-market shelves. Was she charging for the “ambience” which basically consisted of some easy chairs, some ethnic cushions against a glass frontage from where you could see the world go by? Or did she perchance think dollar rates were okay considering most of her clients are foreigners?

Talk of hype…

Then there is Satsangha, which is on the map of any tourist brochure on Pondy. As you walk in, there is a menu (which is fairly common like restaurants in France) with a picture of the French chef). First of, with all that tall grass hiding hordes of mosquitoes, I spent the evening scratching or slapping at my legs and arms to deal with these winged insects which carry all kinds of diseases. Second, I ordered pasta and got spaghetti. Did the French owner (who was not there) think I, an Indian, would not know the difference? Or did his Indian chef – who was supposed to show up at my table and do some PR but did not come (come on, that was not a tall order considering only two tables were occupied) – did not know the difference? Anyway, again a whopping bill for a fraud.

While India has no angels in the real estate industry – how many times have you encountered a sleazy broker in the booming real estate market in Goa? –the ones I met in Pondy took the cake. Firstly, it’s a segment cornered by some foreign women who obviously are high maintenance. So while you are used to brokers charging two per cent as a commission, in Pondy, one of them told me she charged a jaw-dropping 15 per cent! So, the poor sods who go to them looking for a long stay apartment fork out commissions that obviously pay for these women’s lifestyles.

Poetic Justice

But having said this, I must say I was floored by a bakery (they call it boulangerie in French) on the road to Auroville which had an array of mouth-watering confections for prices that can be called a steal. A big piece of pizza came for just Rs 31(yes, it’s true or c’est vrai as the French would say) and – hold your breath – true blue brown bread for just Rs 18. The irony is that a bakery in town called Baker Street (which is highly recommended in all tourist brochures) sold brown bread for Rs 90. Even a Frenchman was startled when he handed over a C note and got just Rs 10 back. Incidentally this bakery is run by a local. Talk of poetic justice!

(Feedback 6658606, 9763718501 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)

Privy purse

2009-10-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

Third dimensional

At least someone wrote in to say she was in agreement with what I said last week … that a good many anti-building activists raising a ruckus are those who own small plots of land but with their homes already built. The lady from Orlim however wrote in adding a third dimension. She says ‘many activists are ex-Mumbaites who have benefited from the builders lobby by selling their small flats for exorbitant prices and are now returning to their motherland to make trouble for their humbler cousins who have been busy toiling to keep their homes going.’ My, my, this truly enhances the quality of the street level activist. Talk of double standards. She goes on to say: ‘In our village too activists only tried to sabotage the regional plan committees’ work and gained popularity with endless articles in the press which was ever obliging and never bothered with facts.” Amen to that.

What’s it going to take?

What will it take for us drivers to get the Ribandar stretch of the road to Panjim, repaired? The islanders of Divar have put up with the pathetic state of the roads on the island for years. While the island’s arterial roads were tarred some months ago, the stretch from Bainginium got from bad to worse. And at Ribandar the less said about the state of the road, the better. At nights, a herd of cattle parked opposite the Sao Pedro chapel confront drivers with an altogether different nightmare. So, what’s it going to take? Bigger vehicle maintenance bills, or some biker killing himself by colliding with the cattle?

Privy purse?

It’s got to be that or, they are the ‘chosen ones’. ‘Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people’ (Exodus 19:5-6). What more can one say of our montris. The week before last I wrote that Rs 18,13,926 of your, by now very expendable, tax money was spent renovating the official residence of Digambar Kamat between June 8, 2007 and now. To do up the official residence of the Home Minister, Ravi Naik, Rs 5,25,185 was spent. It went like this: Rs 4,17,843 went to paint the bungalow; add some repair costs to that. Installing an FRP (fibre reinforced plastic) cabin cost Rs 1,07,342. Now, why on earth do you think he would need that? As a swine flu shelter, you think? Rs 2,49,202 was spent to paint the bungalow (F-0-1) of the Health Minister, Vishwajeet Rane. Chosen ones? Indeed. In actual fact, Naik ordered the bungalow to be painted internally and externally but then shifted residence on October 21, 2007 to the bungalow called ‘Herambh’.

The Color of Money

That was the motion picture about a young pool hustler learning the tricks of the trade from an old pro, based on the novel by Walter Tevis. Paul Newman earned an Academy Award for his performance as the aging pool shark Eddie in this film, which was released in 1986. Where’s the connection? That’s not hard to figure out, but for the moment let’s say this is how you get hustled out of your tax money. Rs 1,03,779 was spent to paint (externally only) and to carry out ‘urgent repairs’ to F-0-2, the official bungalow of the Public Works Department Minister, Churchill Alemao. Rs 9,36,450 was incurred to carry out ‘various repairs’. Replacing a chandelier and a wall fitting in the hall cost Rs 24,817. A horizontal (!) water heater cost Rs 19,690. Rs 30,650 was spent to fit an air conditioner in a ‘separately constructed room’ in the (his) chamber at the Government Secretariat at Porvorim. That amounts to a whopping Rs 1,11,5,386.

Gory details

Now, this is the really, really frustrating part. Rs 4,97,292 of your tax bucks was spent to buy precisely 82 items for the official bungalow of Digambar Kamat. But what boggles the mind, are items like the two TVs (Rs 19,000+Rs 90,000) a refrigerator, folding ladder, and several wall clocks. So, who took away the earlier ones then? What happened to the original curtains also, because new curtains were bought for Rs 1,32,231. And, for crying out loud, why buy four wall paintings for Rs 76,000. I can understand our montris not wanting to use their predecessor’s towels and linen, but it does seem strange when you have to replace every single conceivable kitchenware, cookware, crockery and cutlery or, do they want to start with a clean slate, so to speak. Because, when you need a rice strainer (Rs 360), it does prove they start from the beginning. All one can is when someone else is being suckered, our montris become fastidious!
All this reminds me of the furore in Dilli over External Affairs Minister S M Krishna and his deputy Shashi Tharoor staying in five-star hotels for the last three months. They both defended themselves saying they were picking up the tab. But even if one overlooks Shashi Tharoor (he did declare assets of nearly Rs 30 crores as a candidate from Thiruvanathapuram) and chalk it down to his earnings from his career as a diplomat with the UN and from his books, what was Krishna’s source of income considering he has been a career politician? To think he could afford Rs one lakh per day on the presidential suite at Hotel Ashoka for the last three months!! Am I giving our montris ideas? God forbid!

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Sound and fury

2009-10-01T00:24:00.000-07:00

Finger pointing

If you have been reading the Herald, you would have read of the allegations, finger pointing etcetera etcetera leveled by Sheila Gracias and Dr. Marconi Correia at the Cansaulim-Arrosim-Cuelim-Village Panchayat Gram Sabha meeting on August 16, and at a few more gatherings before this meeting. Is there a connection here and a happening trend? It’s possible, because people have been telling me that a good percentage of villagers who are raising a hue and cry are those who do not own properties (apart from their small homes) and also, sadly bhatkars. Foot loose and fancy free now and very rich too having sold huge properties, they hang out with villagers pretending to be activists. And please, there is absolutely no inference here to anyone in these three villages. But it’s happening, and the Varca taxi drivers would be my ‘Exhibit A’ submission in a debate on this.

The other side

And as a coin has two sides, this one does too. And this is the version of Blanche Pereira, the Sarpanch, who says that at an extraordinary meeting of the Gram Sabha on April 11, to discuss the Regional Plan (RP) 2021, attended by 81 members; she asked them if they wanted to reserve parts of the land as open spaces for the village of Cansaulim. According to her, none voiced their opinion and two resolutions to this effect were passed (no. 13 and 14). According to her, Mathany Saldanha and Marconi Correia were present.
In fact according to Blanche Pereira, this meeting was specifically held because at an earlier Gram Sabha on March 29, 2009, Sheila Gracias had alleged that the meeting was futile since in the kit, the 2001 map concerning the RP was not provided. According to the Sarpanch, kits were officially provided to the VP as early as December 2008 and were available for public scrutiny.
In addition, she says, coloured maps were printed and distributed to the ward committee members. Also, the Town and Country Planning (TCP) department had invited a list of architects on a voluntary basis and the VP body chose Nilesh Salkar of Vasco da Gama, who suggested that the ward committees make their plans and submit them to the TCP in Panjim. According to Blanche, Sheila Gracias had, on the contrary, suggested the name of another architect, Carlos Gracias. He with the other ward committee members went to the wards (according to Blanche Pereira, not all the wards) and identified only the sand dunes, ponds, and lakes. They did not survey the Cansaulim and Arossim beach roads, the existing village roads, and the main district road to the village, the Cansaulim railway station, government schools, and hospitals, which as a result were omitted in the ward plans.

What orchard zone?

On the day of the special Gram Sabha on April 11, she says, the committee members submitted their ward-wise plans duly signed to the VP in the presence of a town planner from Vasco. “There was no discussion on the plans that were submitted. However, Sheila Gracias stood up and said that the beach area should be declared an orchard zone. In reality, the notion of an orchard zone is against the land use laws as recommended by the Centre for land between the 200 m and 500 m High Tide Line. A panch, Ferwin Saldanha then asked everyone present if they wanted to keep their properties as open spaces under the orchard zone which meant no development would be allowed. No one responded. ”
Blanche says that after incorporating the ward level plans into the main plan she invited Carlos Gracias to quote the resolution that said there must be an orchard zone. He could not, and refused to sign the maps. “The resolution of the meeting was approved by all the members present and therefore, accusing me now of not reserving an orchard zone, is baseless. All the plans can be obtained from the TCP under the RTI, if anybody wants to verify what I have said.” She says also that during scrutiny of the combined map by Carlos Gracias, villagers, including all the panchas, gave in writing their objections to the orchard zone.

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Talk of being helpful

2009-09-02T00:57:00.000-07:00

Faleiro’s ‘One small step for Goa, one giant leap for Goans’

Jai Ho Taiwan! Eduardo Faleiro, Commissioner for NRI Affairs, could be off to Taiwan in October on the off chance, he said so himself, he might bump into some Goans there. Good luck to him. To the best of my knowledge there are two Goans in Tokyo, one of them I know, and is married to a Japanese lady. There’s opportunity there, Boss. Ditto for the Cayman Islands, where I have just discovered there are a bunch of Goans. And as for Goans in Kenya, there are just 2,000 of them according to my sources there. Since they are all Kenyan citizens, I really don’t see how the Indian embassy in Nairobi could be of use to them except to create further obstacles, if for some vague reason it were asked to help. When I travelled to Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania in 2001, I was informed there that are only four Goan families left in Kisumu, a town on the shores of Lake Victoria on the Kenyan side. In Unguja, the main island of Zanzibar, I could trace and meet one Goan who had a travel agency there. The rest had all migrated. Now, my sources tell me there are barely 1,000 Goans in Tanzania and 200 in Uganda.

These Goans abroad do not need to be reminded about their Goan roots, simply because they will never forget. Their endless supply of Goan sausages, masalas and feni is testimony to their nostalgia for Goa and everything Goan. As for Goans living in Canada and the U.S. for that matter, the cost of a flight to Goa is simply daunting, and so most Goans there prefer to travel to the U.K. and Europe where they have a network of Goans. It’s simply a question of logistics and cost effectiveness. In fact if you are a regular reader of herald2day, you will have noticed that Goan themed restaurants or restaurants serving Goan food are only opened in the U.S. I can’t recall a Goan restaurant being opened in the U.K. I guess for all the obvious reasons.

Another time, another place

I recall writing a special report for Mumbai’s Mid-Day during Kuwait’s invasion by Iraq between August 1990 and January 1991 and to my surprise every Goan returnee I interviewed had a horror tale to tell of the sheer insensitivity of Indian embassies to all Indians wherever their help was sought.

Faleiro went there too, at least he stationed himself in a neighbouring country (I can’t remember which), to help. Apparently, his presence did not help one bit. Faleiro was there as a representative of Rajiv Gandhi’s opposition Congress (VP Singh was the Prime Minister at the time) and along with the then Foreign Minister Inder Kumar Gujral even met Iraq’s President Saddam Hussain. In an interview later, Faleiro was quoted as saying, “I must say I was given special treatment in meeting President Hussein. I suppose this was because his Baath Party had fraternal relations with the Congress.” But, sadly, accounts of fleeing Goans indicated they were not given special treatment.

Wasted Effort

My point is Indian embassies are as a rule uncooperative and not accommodating. And for this, I can vouch. When I lost my passport in Bejing in August 2007, I discovered to my everlasting disappointment that the Chinese police, authorities and my travel guide were overeager to help, but not the Indian embassy, then headed by Nirupama Rao, now India’s foreign secretary. The attitude I encountered was typically desi, every Indian at the embassy felt (and showed it) they were doing me a huge favour in issuing me a duplicate passport. In contrast a female Chinese police officer spent more time trying to explain to me the procedures in China, the job that should have been done by someone in the embassy. Fed up, I called up every senior journalist friend I knew in Delhi. Hey presto, it finally worked, and my passport was ready, but not before the laminating machine was purposely made to malfunction because my calling up ‘friends’ made me the most hated Indian in Beijing. In fact, when I went across to say thank you, one graceless official said –“Whatever.”

Adding to taxpayer's burden

If our montris are not going on their version of the Starship Enterprise missions abroad to sell Goa’s tourism industry or to save Goans abroad, they are preoccupied doing up their homes. Between June 8, 2007 and now, Rs 4,85,338 was spent on various repairs to the official home of Digambar Kamat, who apart from flying economy, would have you believe that he goes home to Margao for rest and recreation. But during that time Rs 5,40,612.63 was also spent painting up his Altinho residence. I don’t know who sits on his chairs, can’t be Churchill Alemao –he’s too busy doing his own thing like kickboxing; but Rs 7,75,973 was spent on ‘urgent’ repairs to the office furniture at his official residence. Add to that the lighting in the living room that cost you Rs 12,033. Now, all that adds up to an official Rs 18,13,926.63. When the officials get going, the going gets official!

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Dhavlikar's Dubious deeds

2009-08-21T04:20:00.000-07:00

Calling the kettle black

The Transport Minister Ramakrishna Dhavlikar has warned that if the government reneged on the contract awarded to Shimnit Utsch India Pvt. Ltd., to supply high security number plates, it ‘would have to pay through its nose’ the liquidated damages that would become payable to Shimnit. Boohoo. Of course, no figures were given to back the claim. There never are. On the contrary, the men responsible for not understanding the factors before they signed on the dotted line, might also be up for a bloody nose. Because, this is the way things are done in Government. In the business world, it’s called ‘backward integration’. In government, it works like this; first you swallow a huge dose of vitamin M. Fortified, you promise the sun and moon; and when inevitably you end up in the doghouse you backtrack, simultaneously threatening all sides. It happened with SEZs and is happening with the floating casinos. But expect more on this because Manohar Parrikar has a few tricks up his sleeve, so do some more concerned citizens from out of State, because there is much Dhavlikar does not know about the high security registration plates.

Talking about paying through the nose, between February 2005 to February 2009 your Government spent Rs 46,18,467 as legal fees paid to various lawyers in Dilli to defend the State before the Supreme Court. This includes some lakhs spent on opposing the petition filed by Dhavlikar challenging his disqualification by the Speaker Pratapsingh Rane.

Dhavlikar should have done his home work before he went gung ho on this one, after all there is this possibility of a bloody nose if the government has to compensate the SEZ applicants, sorry recipients of the government’s goodwill. There’s also this huge problem of the thousand of trucks, cars and even all kinds of two-wheelers with registrations from States like Himachal Pradesh, Dilli (naturally) and of course from Karnataka and Maharashtra that are in Goa almost permanently. These vehicles must be registered in Goa within 11 months. Their owners live here, work here or have businesses in Goa. What is Dhavlikar going to do about them? The answer, is he will ignore them, pretending they don’t exist. In fact, I can see yet another set of rules for Bhaillos and another for Goemkars.

Government goes shopping for Dhavlikar

I came across these details the other day which might interest you. Replacing a ‘garden fitting’ at his official Altinho bungalow cost the same government Rs 1,39,350. Must have been one hell of a garden fitting and unfortunately, I can’t throw more light on this. Replacing an air conditioner cost Rs 35,228. To set up home for him at F-0-1 in Altinho, the government spent Rs 28,924.65 on items like plastic mugs, a gas stove and a mixer grinder. Makes you wonder who took away all the stuff before he moved in. Among the other items the government bought with the Rs 28,924.65 are: double bed sheet set, dust bins, dusters, glasses, thermos flask, spoons, kitchen knife, pressure cooker, dinner plates, cups, pillows, more double bed sheets, bedspreads, towels, pillow covers, and door mats. There’s also this little detail of your government buying him a spanking new Honda City for Rs 8,78,000. I am beginning to think our MLAs richly deserved that salary hike.

Aires Rodrigues Vs Subodh Kantak

Digging up more dope on his bête noire Aires says that a close relative of his, a lawyer called Leena Anish Dharwadkar, who worked under Subodh Kantak was paid Rs 7,65,000 from February 2005 to March 2008 by way of fees. She has now been appointed manager (legal) at the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (GSIDC) on a salary of Rs 30,000 per month. GSIDC also appointed an assistant legal manager called Mohini Ramanathan Nair. Not bad, eh, Mr Dhavlikar, your government does have money to spend through both nostrils. Aires Rodrigues says Kantak himself was a GSIDC director from February 1, 2006 and resigned on September 13, 2007. He asks did Kantak resign to ensure that the selection of his kin to a key post did not look too obvious. Are you kidding?

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What models they'll make!!

2009-08-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

A Madame Tussauds for Goa?

Perhaps the oldest colonial edifice in Goa, the old Secretariat building, or Adil Shah Palace or Palacio da Idalcao is currently being renovated at a cost of Rs 3,86,37,880 and the expenditure required to complete the renovation is currently pegged at Rs 7,25,62,120. This of course is peanuts compared to, I think, the Rs 36 crore that was spent to give Adil Shah’s inheritors a spanking new Assembly at Porvorim. It is the government’s intention to turn the old Secretariat “into a cultural centre thereby establishing art galleries, museums etc.” While it’s more than probable that the Rs 7,25,62,120 could rocket into space like the Agni-3 currently doing trials; what is true is that the government is fuzzy as to what it intends to do with it.

So be prepared for a mall to come up there or something equally kitschy. Because, apart from Madame Tussauds wax replicas of forty plus two you know who, past and present, I can’t think of anything else that can be preserved there for posterity. Can you? No, you can’t because the upkeep of the statues and artifacts was criticised in that very Assembly last week. And, if a raison d’etre be required, there is always the parallel of the UP chief minister to fall back on. But, trust me on this one, there are already a million Dilliwallahs jostling for a part of the action.

Remember, the Entertainment Society of Goa came up with ‘adaptive reuse’ when it wanted to lease out the Macquinez Palace (old GMC building, Campal, Panjim) to a Dilliwallah for a mall? On this one you are going to need a Thesaurus to come with an appropriate phrase. Here’s a thought: adaptive reuse is the process of adapting old structures for purposes other than those initially intended. And our montris are really, really good at this, don’t you think?

Proof of the Pudding

The you know who built their own Palacio da Idalcao (officially known as Goa Niwas, Chanakyapuri, Delhi) at a cost till date of Rs 16,72,69,000 and the projected cost is expected to be Rs 19,70,22,800. See, it’s always about “projected”. And of course the projected can get even more. What the government would call projected, but what I would say is easily predictable. For instance, if my memory serves me right, the original cost of the new Assembly at Porvorim was Rs 13 cr. It was re-estimated to cost Rs 26 cr. The information I have does not say how much our Government paid, or rather, you and I paid for the land to build the Goa Niwas, or, why so typically, your government always has an ‘estimated cost put to tender’ and an ‘up to date expenditure’. But then, we all know why, don’t we? In the first is where the creamy layer lies, in the second, is where the crème de la crème lies. Get it?

For the record

Civil & plumbing works –Rs 52770013 (estimated cost put to tender) Rs 92532650 (up to date expenditure); interior works – Rs 12572819.64- Rs 12393000; internal electrification -Rs 7715584-Rs 11897761; fixtures & fans –Rs 2081429-Rs 1982408; EPABX system –Rs 809329-Rs 492535; CCTV & car call system –Rs 1421155-Rs 520267.

Cops privatized?

Has the police department privatized its traffic cell, is a question people are asking these days and especially because after the UPA bounced back, its disinvestment plan is in place now that the Left which put a spoke in the wheel, is not part of the centre. It’s like this, in every vantage point in Goa, traffic police can be seen pocketing their self-imposed fines. In Panjim, they do it under the shade of the Mandovi bridge. You can also see them at the Cortalim traffic isle earning their keep, or at Filsu bar down the river side below where they celebrate with lunch and a few pegs. So, it’s being asked on the roads, has the department stopped paying salaries?

The office of the deputy superintendent of Police (traffic) traffic headquarters, Altinho, Panjim took this to a new level. A colleague gave me a challan served at his home in Aquem, I repeat SERVED TO HIM BY TWO POLICE CONSTABLES AT HIS HOME, charging him with driving his car at Quepem on a particular date and time (details withheld, but I have the original with me). He is now supposed to pay a fine of Rs 100 at the Altinho office. On that date and time he was in Panjim and neither he nor anybody else in the family drove to Quepem. Was his car selectively picked, was it randomly singled out or did the cops, err, as a car whizzed past contrive to get a number which turned out to be his. Let’s give the cops the benefit of the doubt, but to hand-serve the notice deploying two cops for a misdemeanor like not wearing a seat belt? Really now. There’s also this lawyer, quite a few people know in Margao who was also a victim. He was all fire and brimstone at first, but …… So, there might just be some truth in that rumour. God forbid!

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Rich Man, Poor Man

2009-08-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

Cue on queue

Soon I will have to stand in a queue at my panchayat waiting to be issued a permit that proves I am a resident of Divar Island and therefore entitled to cross the ferry free. That is because my government dreamed up some eccentric freebie to help us islanders, instead of just giving us some decent ferries to cross over. It’s gotten so bad that a ferry will actually land on one side, its humans and vehicles disembark, and the ferry will hightail it to somewhere else on an SoS mission where yet another ferry has broken down. Musical ferries, it’s that bad. But, if it’s weird news you want: it’s in my DNA to give. The ferryboat Harmal is 22 years old, Penha-de France 19, Vagator 21, Colva 10, Diwar 10, Pomburpa 12 and Harvalem 18. In fact, some of them, because of the holes they have, remind me of the glass-bottomed boats I have seen in Mauritius and the Andamans and Nicobar Islands to view the flora and fauna. But between June 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009, our montris bought 22 cars at a cost of Rs 1,71,66,180 for themselves. Penny pinching is only for us aam aadmi as you can see. By the way, gamblers going to the floating casinos (never understood what ‘offshore’ means) will have to establish they are not Goans. I guess that means another kind of queue. This is getting tedious.

Thankfully tank full

Guess what, our ruling class is on clover, even if they’ll have you believe not financially and therefore are forced to continually upgrade their allowances or tuck at our cost; remember the assets they declared before the elections when we discovered their wives owned most of it? But here, I am talking about travelling from point A to point B. There are two jeeps (part of the escort) that drop the CM to his residence at Margao, from where ever he is, and return to Panjim. Next morning, they go all the way back to Margao etcetera, etcetera. And you think he is a petrol guzzler! Nah, that distinction goes to Tourism Minister Mickkey Pacheco parading his Hummer around Colva beach at nights, not to mention the temerity of parking it outside the hallowed Goa Assembly recently. When actor Suniel Shetty imported his many years ago, stats showed the Hummer’s fuel consumption could siphon off the Sal River inside a month. In other words, I am told it’s an ungenerous 3 km per litre. Poor man, Mickky could run dry one of these days. Not his purse, dope (considering he recently confessed that his winning in a casino was over a crore), the Hummer’s tank. By the way, General Motors which declared bankrupty recently is looking to hive off the expensive (1,00,000 dollars) car to another manufacturer because in the US, recession has driven people to small cars that economise on fuel. But here, it’s another story! India Shinning!

Oops!

Three weeks ago I wrote about how the Directorate of Health Services hired 280 guards, 6 security supervisors and 3 security officers to guard its 28 establishments, 22 of which are public health centres. I got an email saying that the RTI data was wrong. The email which contained not only the sender’s name but mobile no. too, said the actual figure was: security guards 525, women security guards 25, security supervisors 6, and security officers 3. The cost involved was a lot more than the Rs 198.10 lakh, the email revealed. The tender awarded to G4S was from August 1, 2008 and not from January 1, 2008, which now makes that a lesser period but for apparently a bigger expenditure. G4S is a multinational agency, a collaboration of Group 4 Falk of Britain and Securicore of America and not a Delhi-based agency, as I mentioned. And what I had said earlier was what was signed, sealed and delivered. Wonder who’s right?

One for the road

Quite literally. Of the 22 expensive cars our montris bought for themselves, 11 were Honda city cars each costing Rs 9,00,000, the kind of money it would take to repair a ramshackle of a ferryboat. Yeah, I know the government thinks it’s Rs 30,00,000 each. That’s another story. A Toyoti Innova costing Rs 9,05,680 allotted to the King of Kargoa (the to be merged State of Goa and Karwar) was in replacement of a car (GA-07-G-9700) which had run a measly 35,000 kms. A Toyota Corolla costing Rs 9,98,350 allotted to Jose Philip D’Souza was in replacement of a car (GA-07-G-0026) which had done just 28,000 kms. It’s another matter the two cars were re-allotted, my point is why does this government feel obliged to even offer an excuse or reason for spending your tax money. Just do it, as the ad says. No one’s looking. Besides, we expect nothing else from our extravagant montris!

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Schooled to Boss

2009-08-03T03:42:00.000-07:00

The Manovikas farce

The education ‘arrangement’ (I would like to call it that) in Goa is just like the Goa Assembly notwithstanding the two MLAs who forged their educational qualifications. But, to think the Manovikas High School in Margao qualifies! The recent AGM (July 10) of the school run by Therese Almeida, the founder with proven quality, was vintage Goan. Double standards, classic two-facedness, etcetera. The lights were put off when the ‘ruling class’ felt they had enough of the ‘opposition’ and Therese Almeida stormed out with a section of parents following meekly in her wake. In the Assembly, MLAs are expelled physically only when they resist going by themselves, so, I guess they are better. One PTA (parents, teachers association) member summed up the whole episode like this: ‘If she is going to such lengths, she has something to hide’. A routine PTA election meet turned out to be a platform for the school management to browbeat a section of parents. It began with a non agenda item when a newly recruited teacher obviously tasked with the job, began praising the management. She lambasted those parents who she felt were preventing the management from paying teachers the VI th pay commission scale. Her diatribe was a culmination of what every class teacher had been telling students in class, “Some parents are stopping our increments”. Sources say it is Therese Almeida who is instigating new teachers to make it look like some parents are not supporting the growth of the school. Her unspoken order: ‘never question me’. In other words create a heated debate and deftly deflect from the real issues that concerns students and therefore parents.

Divide and Rule

Divisive, did I say? One parent spoke well about the school but then added that parents opposing a fee hike were ‘anti-school.’ Another parent sang the same tune, adding, he was willing to pay ‘10 times more for a good education.’ But naturally, he works on a floating casino! And, the fees roughly are upwards of Rs 40,000 per year. The anti-parent stuff went on and on! An office bearer of an association that has gone to court on an issue relevant here (to the teachers pay actually) was personally attacked by Therese Almeida, who went to the extent of denying him an opportunity to speak. The man was even heckled by a section of parents. When the PTA president, ironically in the ‘opposition’ pleaded his case, he too was booed. The two parents were trying to get some clarity on the issue of the teachers not being paid their dues –strangely, a banned topic all these years at Manovikas.

Dance of Democracy

And, lo and behold when the elections were finally held, traumatic wouldn’t even begin to describe what unfolded. The 180 parents present were made to sign the ‘secret’ ballot papers and write their names down. This was done to prevent an ‘opposition’ member from getting elected. It also forced the teachers to vote for the ‘right’ candidate. The ‘opposition’ leader lost, but he did get 65 of the 180 votes. Take away the votes of the 40 teachers, it means the ‘official’ candidate had a close call. 140-65=75; 65+40=105. In a democracy, the ‘opposition’ would have won.

It would take several columns to describe the fracas at the PTA meet. But do know that Therese Almeida walked out, her chastising over, followed meekly by the teachers and some parents. Now, this is when that Goan duplicity stood out once again like a festering sore that refuses to heal. There were still 30/40 parents in the hall. The lights were switched off. Is this the way a PTA is conducted? No respect was shown to parents who wanted to present their side of the case, not necessarily on the ‘official’ side. However that one act of switching off the light won over a few parents.

Talk of cronyism and nepotism

Once outside the same hecklers became neoconverts. Two possible reasons. One they had already shown their allegiance to the director inside. Outside, they had to enact the double game, to show they were united with the other parents. As some hecklers justified, “we did not want to, but in the grapevine the news was you do not want to pay fees.” Therese Almeida no doubt made it appear that because parents are not paying the higher fees the school cannot hike salaries. Point is, there is little transparency here. The trust is a charitable organization and claims IT benefits -it is not supposed to make profits. It is also stuffed with an engineer and an architect, who have been awarded school construction contracts; a son- in- law (a daughter is a teacher), a former chairman’s daughter, and a former student in the electronics business.

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Health is Wealth

2009-07-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Health security concerns?

Who is it trying to keep away or, is the Directorate of Health Services actually trying to prevent someone/something escaping from within its walls? The department hired 280 guards, 6 security supervisors and 3 security officers to guard its 28 establishments, 22 of which are public health centres. But considering the public complaints against these centres, it would seem that none of them really warrant the kind of security they get. I am unable to comprehend why the TB Hospital in Margao requires 30 security guards and 3 security supervisors when the Cottage Hospital in Chicalim, Dabolim has only 6 guards. Or why another establishment in Margao, the Hospicio Hospital has to be guarded by 30 guards, 3 security supervisors and 3 security officers. Does it mean that Margao is more prone to robberies or as the good doctor would say ‘theft sensitive’? Bad enough, that the department had to deploy all the 9 security supervisors and officers at these two establishments. If you have dared to visit these ill equipped and poorly managed health institutions, what’s your diagnosis? But guess what? The total expenditure on this between January 1, 2008 and May 5, 2009 is Rs 198.10 lakh. No need to guess this time, but the beneficiary is a Delhi registered company called G4S Security Services (India) Pvt. Ltd. Yeah, it’s always Dilli.

Rane ODed!

Is the health department on an overdose of compassion? Vishwajit Rane’s insistence that the department and the Goa Medical College give insulin free of cost might set back their budgeting by several years. Already his deliberate misreading of the issue of GMC doctors insisting on prescribing ‘so-called’ better medicines allegedly not stocked at GMC, has forced patients to buy these prescribed drugs from outside. The so-called patient outcry on there being no proper medicines at GMC is born from this and nothing else. First there’s a bit of explanation that is in order here. Patients at GMC only seem to ‘want the best medicines’. So, they are obliged by doctors more than willing to oblige multinational pharmaceuticals who – and this is public knowledge now – are willing to spend big bucks on junkets for these docs to faraway Switzerland even or, hold posh ‘seminars’ where everyone lets their hair down, and all expenses paid. In fact, because of Rane’s insistence some of these drugs are being bought from outside. And, as we know for sure now, Rane has the guts to only bully female nurses, not the doctors, who should be ticked off for not sticking to the GMC’s WHO (World Health Organization) essential drug list that I am told reliably, GMC strictly adheres to. In fact, I am told that GMC dispenses medicines valued at Rs 1.50 lakh on a daily basis. And who are the beneficiaries? Nearly mostly migrant labourers, the army’s soldiers and if you spend time in the GMC’s parking lot, you will find ambulances driving even from faraway Sawantwadi. Yeah, do that, it will cure you of some of your mental blocks about some of the GMC’s harassed staff and medicos.

Rane, an Anbumani-clone?

Is Vishwajit Rane another Anbumani Ramadoss in the making? The fact that the former is Goa’s current health minister and the latter is India’s former health minister is all that is not common between them. They both orchestrated “surprise” visits to hospitals and suspended hapless staff. A nurse was shown the door after Rane dramatically pulled off a sheet at Goa Medical College recently to reveal a hole. The nurses were on the warpath. Both scions of political families have courted controversy and just like Ramadoss who had a running battle with the chief of AIIMS, Vishwajeet too has rubbed the dean of GMC the wrong way as a result of which Dr. V N Jindal has sought voluntary retirement.

What next? Like Anbumani, will Rane go on to rub celebs the wrong way so he can get publicity?

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2009-07-16T04:02:00.000-07:00

Inspector Gadget

Marine Commmando Squad, Missing Persons Squad – these are not American TV serials which have stories inspired by real life. These are among the units that our Home Minister Ravi Naik intends to set up in Goa. All these names have a nice ring to them and Ravi Naik knows he’ll get his 15 minutes of fame in the media when he makes such grandiose announcements. He sure knows how to grab eyeballs. He demonstrated that when some months ago he dared Pramod Muthalik, infamous for orchestrating the attack on young women visiting a pub in Mangalore, to enter Goa. In May, after the body of a Russian teenager was found on the tracks in Tivim, Ravi Naik famously blamed foreigners for giving Goa a bad name by bringing in the booze and partying culture. Does the home minister know that many domestic tourists too booze and party as if it going out of style? Besides, if the home minister really means business won’t Goa be able to shed its reputation?
Coming back to the Marine Commando Squad, it seems our montri thinks he can spend tax payer’s money to get James Bond-like gadgets like high-speed interceptor boats, especially the 12-tonne Hell Raisers' that can be used for deep-sea patrolling. That his earlier proposal to set up an Anti Terrorism Squad has not get the centre’s green signal is no secret, so it seems that he has thought up this new avatar.
It seems strange that he should come up with these new-fangled names when the police has been found wanting when an alleged serial killer was on the loose for many months despite a missing persons complaint by 14 families (of the 16 he allegedly killed). By the way, now the police are going to have a Missing Persons Squad. It’s called locking the stable door after the horse has bolted! But all this begs the question – if the home minister had led from the front and got the police to do real police work, would he have to invent all these fancy-sounding squads?

What a song and dance

Recently, well known Hindustani classical singer and Padma Vibhushan awardee , Kishori Amonkar stormed off the stage at Kala Academy when she discovered that a casino was sponsoring her concert. To add insult to injury, she said she was not paid for the concert. She had never been so “insulted”, she said. To think she is a Goan.
Her grouse has been that classical music does not have enough government patronage. Are Goa’s cultural coffers so empty that they have to get a casino in for a classical concert? It’s another matter that they get booze companies to underwrite something like a Grape Escapade.
But, surprise, surprise, the Goa government does seem to have money for culture or so the details below would testify. But if someone of the eminence of Kishori Amonkar feels slighted one wonders where the money has gone, or should I say, who is the beneficiary of the government’s largesse?
A point to note is that Goa is known internationally for its song and dance. But not the kind of song that needs a harmonium for which Rs 21 lakhs was given and Pakhvaz for which Rs 7.50 lakhs was allotted. What a song and dance!

Details of the expenditure of Rs 48, 86,523 incurred in 2006-07 under the scheme to “Provide Musical Instruments and Performance Related Material to Cultural Troupes”:

Name of Item / Amount

Harmonium -21,02,100
Pakhvaz - 7,50,750
Zamkhan - 3,39,456
Cymbal (Taal) - 3,84,930
Keyboard - 8,00,000
Violin - 2,26,575
Guitar - 2,82,712

Total expenditure: Rs 48, 86,523

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A Profligate Government

2009-07-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

A “cranky” Russian

When a Russian teenager was found dead recently, a Russian consulate official came here apparently on a fact-finding mission as well as to complete some formalities. A little bird says that the official was “cranky” even during a meeting with Chief Minister Digambar Kamat. It’s almost as if he blamed the government for the young girl’s death when we all know that drug rumours swirled around her after her death. The normally reticent CM apparently showed his irritation with the official’s attitude. An official in on the meeting pointed out that the consular official got easy access to the CM (because that’s how we are, given the circumstances). When Indians died under a cloud in Russia, relatives were forced to run from pillar to post. Forget a high ranking politician, even meeting a top cop in Russia can be ruled out despite glasnost/perestroika.

Goa government’s profligacy

Forget MLAs who seem to have no scruples crossing floors into the arms of the highest bidder, even the Goa government is short on morals and often does not do the right thing. In fact it is the government which tacitly encourages MLAs to do their own thing and then goes to court to litigate thereby piling up work, not to speak of fees, for its lawyers. No wonder then there are so many around. Below is a list of the fees paid to various government lawyers, special counsels, senior counsels etc to appear before the Bombay High Court, tribunals, arbitrators etc from February 11, 2005 till date.

Total fees paid to various government lawyers, special counsels, senior counsels, advocates on records to appear before the Bombay High Court, tribunals, arbitrators etc February 11, 2005 till date.

1 Emercio Afonso 3,16,450
2 Shaikh Vahidulla 4,99,100
3 Winnie Courinho 1,727,806
4 Atancio Cardoz 2,08,600
5 SR Rivonkar 929,000
6 Sanjiv G Sardessai 93,250
7 Guru Shirodkar 1,069,000
8 NK Sawaikar 97,300
9 HD NAik 64,000
10 Shri K Y Thally 3,00,650
11 Shri PA kamat 1,55,100
12 SN Sardessai 2,52,000
13 HR Bharne 1,47,500
14 Parmanand Naik 2,05,400
15 Antancio Monteiro 1,26,350
16 GV Tamba 86,500
17 MP Sawaikar 1,35,500
18 RR Sangodkar 44,000
19 BV Sukhtankar 9,925
20 GD Kirtani 9,81,950
21 Rajesh Narvenkar 1,80,000
22 VP Thally 78,000
23 Susan Linhares 2,89,200
24 SN Shinde 19,300
25 EP Lobo 1,71,250
26 Datta Prasad V Prabhu Lawande 44,000
27 Nilesh A Takkekar 33,000
28 Sarvesh S Kamat Malyekar 33,000
29 Santosh H Bharne 14,700
30 Amol Thaly 26,500
31 Pratapsingh M Nimbalkar 38,300
32 JV Coelho 29,500
33 MS Joshi 1,71,000
34 John S Lobo 55,500
35 Rakhi M Chodankar 11,25,000
36 Gauri DS Bhosle 5,35,000
37 Leena Dharwadkar 7,65,500
38 Kanchan Chodankar 2,41,500
39 Vallabh Pangum 14,650
40 Manish Salkar 7,09,200
41 Subhash Pundalik Sawant 43,133
42 Harsha Naik 41,550
43 Agnelo D’Costa 2,14,050
44 Carlose Ferria 1,11,500
45 Dilip P Dabholkar 1,82,200
46 Irshad Aga 47,700
47 Durga Kinlekar 14,800
48 Rabindranath Menezes 2,64,750
49 Kishore P Prabhudessai 1,84,923
50 Talentina Xavier 1,51,200
51 Prashant Kamat 4,27,000
52 AT Kamat, govt counsel 23,450
53 Nitin NN Sardessai 2,53,000
54 RM Lotlikar 11,70,981
55 Albino C Vales 22,200
56 Prashant V Borkar 3,88,350
57 TG Jaques 2,36,100
58 Jayant Prabhu 11,400
59 VM Patkar 2,100
60 Abhijeet Kamat 2,11,000
61 Rajendra G Raut Dessai 74,950
62 Kala Dalal 16,800
63 Kishor Bhagat 7,000
64 Sapna Mordekar 1,40,000
65 Milagries P Fernandes 12,75,800
66 Vivek Rodrigues 73,500
67 Sameer A Bandodkar 49,000
68 I C Dias 2,43,855
69 Vinoj Daniel 2,86,824
70 SB Faria 2,22,000
71 Ramkrishna Bhale 5,700
72 Ignasious Dias 92,300
73 Vijay Nadkarni 4,50,000
74 Gauranj Sirsat 77,400
75 CR Rodrigues 33,900
76 Peter Fernandes 72,400
77 R G Bhale 54,300

TOTAL 1,92,09,597

Total fees paid to SC lawyers from February 11, 2005 till date

1 Anip Sachthey 6,24,400
2 Madhu Sikri 33,000
3 Harin P Rawal 100,000
4 Shriniwas S Khalap 200,000
5 Huzefa Ahmadi 160,000
6 Anupam Las Das 33,000
7 KK Venugopal 880,000
8 K Parasaran 1,072,500
9 A Subhasini 157,645
10 Srinivas R Khalap 535,922
11 S K Kakodkar 315,000
12 Nimalini Gore 30,000
13 F S Nariman 385,000
14 Uday U Lalit 33,000
15 R N Karanjawala 59,000

Total 46,18,467

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Mackenna's Gold

2009-07-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

This ore is our ore

The Dempos sold over 1,800 hectares of leased mining licenses to Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Resources for a cash-and-carry sum of Rs 1,750 crore. But, hang on, did they actually own the ore on the land they owned, notwithstanding the fact no individual can own mineral rights in India? The distressing answer is a huge ‘NO’. Why? Because mineral wealth is the nation’s wealth -not for individuals to exploit for their personal benefit. The U.S is the only country on the planet that allows individuals to own mineral rights. And we all know what those merry band of individuals, who not only own minerals, also everything above and below earth, did to the worlds’ economy. Through a rather cunning exploitative route, the Government of India was thwarted in its plans to nationalize the mines in Goa decades ago –the compromise was the mining leases you have in Goa today. What the Government of India did was annul the concessions given by the Portuguese for perpetuity and came out with The Goa, Daman and Diu Mining Concessions (Aboliton and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987. So, while everyone applauded, the deal of the century (Dempo-Vedanta) was played out making maximium use of Goa’s red soil.

Surface Rights or Mineral Rights?

If you calculate the quantity of ore that has been dug out from the earth and sold to the Japanese alone, it would give you sleepless night thinking of what the worth of that could have done for Goa. Macau would look like a poor man’s Shangri La. Here’s a bit of information that should at least make you want to pull your hair out, so you can sleep at least. Sesa Goa’s lineage has been transformed since 1954 when it kicked off as Scambi Economi SA, Goa. The following year it was jointly renamed Sesa Goa Ltd. After it was jointly taken over by Gewerkeschaft Exploration, West Germany, and Ferromin SpA, Italy, a subsidiary of Finsider SpA, belonging to the IRI group –which by then had acquired the German company’s stake in Sesa. Mingoa Pvt. Ltd and Sesa Goa were merged into one company.
Later, in the course of restructuring of certain subsidiaries within the IRI group, Sesa Goa’s ownership changed from Finsider SpA to Finsider International SA, Luxembourg, and then to Finsider International, UK. Phew! Looks like a soccer game, the way they kick around (on) Goa’s scarred red soil. In 1981, Finsider divested 60 per cent of its shareholding to the Indian public. It hiked it again under its new name Ilva International, from 40 per cent to 51 per cent in 1993 –now under the RILP umbrella. Now, tell me what stops Vedanta from selling the combined might of their mines to China’s Chinalco who were willing to offer a $19.5-billion-cash injection in favour of a joint venture in Western Australia with bitter rival BHP Billiton, just to keep out another rival Rio Tinto. It’s a long story, but what needs to be understood here, is when rare earth gets rarer $19.5 billion becomes peanuts. That’s why the US is willing to fight a trillion dollar war in Iraq to gain control over crude oil that costs far, far less to refine closer to home. And may I remind you that Rs 1,750 crore would mean chickens*#t, considering the low rupee value against the dollar, and no deterrent to future buyers like the Chinese going on an acquisition spree.

Jogging your memory

When I interviewed Emilio Riva who owned RILP in 1995 for a national business daily, in Sesa Ghor, it was crystal clear to me, that he had no intention of retaining ownership of the Sesa Goa he had just acquired. Though he denied it at the interview, he soon sold it to Mitsui who appeared to have the same itch to sell as all Sesa Goa owners inherently have; and sold it to Vedanta. The Italian billionaire had at that point of time acquired Ilva Laminati Piani SpA, Italy (ILP) the holding company of Finsider International Co. Ltd., U.K., which was Sesa Goa’s principal shareholder then. The Riva Group rose from 25th position to become the world’s fourth largest steel producer after it acquired ILP. See, it’s all about power, wealth and screw the rest. Incidentally, the Essar Group also had a 32 per cent stake in RILP!

PS: My apologies if the 2-Fast-2-Furious pace of describing how Sesa Goa was sold over the years made you tizzy. But within this restricted June 11, 2009 space I couldn’t do any better.

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All hot air

2009-07-16T03:30:00.000-07:00

Debate needed

Wonder why your 40 rulers never debate issues in the State Assembly where they are constitutionally bound (leave aside the meaningless oath they take) to discuss issues that affect the public? Instead they just score debating points against each other and real issues get sidetracked. Here’s another thought. If they did oblige you their game would be up, wouldn’t it? And you would know because you can see through their games. That’s why the BJP waits till the crap hits the ceiling and become the heroes going by the media play they get by bringing up a ‘burning’ issue in the assembly. That the media focuses on non-issues is another matter altogether. Often, a press conference timed just before the Assembly session, adds fuel to the fire. That is why no Assembly debate will ever be had on why Churchill Alemao wants the new State of Kargoa, i.e., a merged Karwar and Goa. Or perhaps a debate on how he finally got on to the home lane on the issue of four or six laning the NH from Panjim to Margao; or, if it should be extended to Karwar! After all, Churchill, who is tipped to be the first chief minister of Kargao, did say ‘take me seriously’ outside the assembly not inside. Or, a debate on whose side the Dhavlikar Brothers and Vishwajit Rane are on, rather how many sides they are on. Because whichever way they might want to interpret voters’ rights in Sankhali, you have a constitutional right to know which way they swing. But, these debates are never going to happen in the Assembly. So, let’s do it here.

But debate this for Godsakes

The GTDC I fear could turn into an ogre, if let out of its cage unfettered. It was turned into a dangerously big corporation when all the properties owned by the Tourism Department were transferred to it. Why, for example, did the Tourism Department or GTDC sign a 21 year-lease agreement for the Terekhol Fort Heritage for a rental of Rs 1,05,000 per month with a Harkishan Ajwani. Why commit to as far away as 2023 in as early 2002. Where is the commercial sense in this? And will the honchos who bid for GTDC’s land because they are money driven, not demand 99-year-old leases in return for the crores they will invest. All considered why lease out the Old Goa Residency restaurant for a mere Rs 22,950 per month. In fact, GTDC has literally hundreds of leased out shops whose lease agreements must be researched and revaluated for their real potential. And when I say real potential, I mean potential to the tourism industry which appears to occupy the minds of the people who run the GTDC these days. When I last checked, GTDC had not leased out its cafeteria and land at Pomburpa. Earlier, when it had, it fixed a lease hire of Rs 2,144! It has not leased out its land with a restaurant at Vagator because of a dispute over the availability of water there. Since it had earlier fixed a lease rent of Rs 1,68,096, it translates into losing exactly that kind of revenue. But, this GTDC will not study issues like those described here, on the contrary it is rubbing its hands in glee at the prospects of the ‘financial’ opportunity in the property it has in its possession.
Should not the GTDC lease its hotels to industry players who have the expertise and money to back their expertise? After all, there literally is not a hotel group in India that is not looking to buy, is buying hotels or taking them over on lease. GTDC has 12 hotels with a total room capacity of 529, and in the past when it wanted it did privatise three hotels in Mollem, Terekhol and Pernem with a total room capacity of 38.

This land is our land

Calangute 3,769 sq mt meant for developing a shopping complex.
Calangute 4,583.10 sq mt meant to expand Calangute Residency.
Calangute 1,850 sq mt meant to construction a resort.
Calangute 22,850 sq mt to construct dormitory, car/bus park, cottages.
Calangute 22,081 sq mt meant for providing basic amenities.
Calangute 276 sq mt meant for constructing toilet.
Baga 29,925 sq mt Fatima D’Sa when she was GTDC chairperson had her own plans for it.

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Real Issues

2009-06-12T04:32:00.000-07:00

No-win situation

I have often said ‘if you are one of those who buys into the Goa-is-at-peace bullshit, read our rival. Its news makes you think Goa is a world of Nirvana all the way. If you are troubled (a.k.a concerned) by the Goa around you, read the Herald. Here are some more real time news events to ponder on. In fact these have hardly been written about in the past, at least not in the way it should have made you sit up and your hair stand up. There is this little known egg nest called the Goa State Scheduled Caste and Other Backward Classes Finance and Development Corporation Ltd whose accounts were last finalized in fiscal 2000-01. I can’t tell, but you can bet your last buck that your government has an equally long-winded answer as to why it happened. Perhaps part of the reasons are that for seven consecutive years up to 2007-08 it pumped in equity of Rs 5 lakh, 31.67 lakh, 5 lakh, 5 lakh, 5 lakh, 5 lakh, and 5 lakh respectively. The one with the less rambling name, Goa State Scheduled Tribes Finance and Development Corporation Ltd was last audited in 2006-07. But, what you really need to do is walk into these offices and see how hard(ly) your government babus work, i.e.’ if you can get past the small detail of the empty tables and chairs that greet you when you walk in.

Estate Management

Call it a new Special Economic Zone in the making, but the GTDC’s intention (hopefully it won’t fructify or, that the many NGOs and activists will not wait until the eleventh hour to protest) to create ‘better’ infrastructure by inviting ‘Expression of Interest’ from the private industry, hints at just that. Only this might be packaged to look like some friendly neighbourhood infrastructure instead. You know, that usual bull that it will create jobs for Goans (those that didn’t go abroad, but are in queue), da, da, da. But it already gives one a sense of déjà vu. So, let me give you a corresponding case of memory retrieval. Quote from the Audit Report of the Comptroller & Auditor General of India: ‘The Goa Industrial Corporation has been pursuing industrial development on an ad-hoc basis. It did not prepare a perspective plan defining both short term and long term plans for development of industrial infrastructure ….’ The CAG also said ‘The Corporation had not resorted to open invitation for Expression of Interest (EOI) from interested entrepreneurs …;” Allotments were made without any kind of selection process, instead a ‘direct approach system’ was in vogue. Need I say more?

Ad-hocism is the buzzword

How ad-hoc? Trust me, off the cuff won’t even begin to describe the next land scam being cooked up. In the lingua franca of GTDC, it will lease out land to create new infrastructure under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. This could happen next month. In the dialect it used; it also said the government does not want to restrict itself to any infrastructure in particular. Ergo, it wants to let private industry submit bids and only afterwards, will GTDC decide what is best suited for the peoples’ land it unfortunately has become the ruler of. Now, if that does not smack of some intensely sneaky scheming, I don’t know what does.

Worst case scenario

Scenario 1. Based on this open invitation to virtually pick your booty and enjoy, there is no gainsaying that the worst kind or, for that matter even corporates with a brand equity (what’s the difference really?) will not cordon off used tracts of land, and levy an entry fee for whatever entertainment is on offer. And if you have been reading the Herald2day lately, Goans had stopped picnicking in Colva because of the in-your-face domestic tourists who arrive there by the busloads and appropriate the beach. Goans stopped going to Baga nearly a decade ago. They have been prevented from entering the beach at Taleigao and, in fact there are already a few 5-star hotels that did become obstacles for locals wanting to picnic on the beaches where they exist. Scenario 2. Should Goa allow these powerful don’t-give-a-fig-for-the- locals businessmen to take over prime beach land, most of it coming under the CRZ? Especially, when GTDC has itself admitted with amazing candour that it does not know what it wants from the PPA. And, that means it does not know what the Goan tourism industry needs. Remember, the realtors who booked prime land at the Rajiv Gandhi IT Park in Dona Paula?

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2009-06-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

Kantak cares not

Thanks to Aires Rodrigues and Advocate General Subodh Kantak, the thankless (trust me, you can’t imagine how much) task of writing this column is made easy on the rare occasion. What I love about these two gentlemen is that Kantak matches Rodrigues’ increasing incidents of exposing him, by simply increasing his own financial bottomline. Actually, the truth is Kantak is more than one step ahead – after all, time is money! There is no comparable word for this in business lingo, but there’s a beautiful term any layman will understand … I think its called cock-a-snook. Kantak has been cocking-a-snook at Rodrigues, apart from the rest of the world too. Anyways, it reminds me of Snoop Doggy Dogg – the hardcore rap music about violent street life in the US of A, I think first put on the pop charts by IceCube. So, while Rodrigues raves on with his ‘Gangsta Rap’, Kantak stays ice cool. You dig? Here’s the latest ‘Rap’ on Kantak. Rodrigues in his inimitable style, says he has been paid Rs 3 crores 99 lakhs 46 thousand 750 rupees by the Goa government between February 2005 and February 2009 (see table below), making your government, India’s most litigious government beyond reasonable doubt. That, according to Rodrigues makes Kantak not only India’s highest paid Advocate General but India’s highest paid constitutional authority as well.

He says: “Last year’s re-structuring of fees payable to Kantak was a sham as Kantak is now getting paid up to Rs 5 lakhs a month, though the Advocate Generals of bigger States like Karnataka, Maharastra and Gujarat average around Rs 40,OOO a month.” I say Goa must be India’s most litigious State advisedly, even after taking into account Modiland where the 2002 communal riots spawned a bunch of cases against the Gujarat government that are yet to see any conclusion. Thus, Rodrigues does make a point. According to Rodrigues, Kantak gets paid three times the salary of President Pratibha Patil, whose monthly salary is Rs 1.5 lakh, and almost five times the salary of the Chief Justice of India - whose salary is Rs 1.10 lakh per month. Amen to that.

Doggone it

Information Rodrigues obtained under Right to Information reveals Kantak met with three accidents since February 11, 2005 for which he stitched the government with a total repair bill of Rs 1, 38,256. This is when it gets side-splitting. Very funny, because though I have gnashed my teeth in frustration (seriously, that’s why I took a two-week Sabbatical because of the futility of it all), this one caused mirth. Hugely, I might say. Here’s why. Kantak’s first accident on July 22, 2006 was due to a coconut falling on the bonnet of his official car; the other two accidents occurred on April 10, 2008 and January 20, 2009 and were caused by stray dogs! While in one case his official driver claimed to have lost control because he braked suddenly to avoid a stray dog, in the other case, a stray dog hit the front bumper of his car! Yeah! Right. Now, one really hopes that Kantak, an animal lover himself, wins his Rs 15 crore defamation suit against Rodrigues. Because, if my memory serves me right, Kantak said he would use that compensation, partly towards the welfare of stray dogs. There is of course the inevitable twist in the tail concerning who drives Kantak’s official car most of the time, but unfortunately as Rodrigues has no RTI evidence on this for obvious reasons, I’ll let it be for the moment. Bow Wow!

The high cost of official litigation

Month Fees Retainership

11.2.2005 to 28.02.2005 2,24,000 -

1.3.2005 to 4.3.2005 74,000 -

16.6.2005 to 30.6.2005 47,000 9,750

Arrears June 2005 1,05,000 9,500

July 2005 3,08,000 19,500

Arrears July 2005 5,40,000 19,000

August 2005 4,46,000 19,500

Arrears August 2005 7,70,000 19,000

September 2005 4,07,000 19,500

Arrears September 2005 7,05,000 19,000

October 2005 2,09,000 19,500

Arrears October 2005 3,75,000 19,000

November 2005 2,03,000 19,500

Arrears of November 2005 3,65,000 19,000

December 2005 3,38,000 19,500

Arrears December 2005 5,90,000 19,000

January 2006 5,99,000 19,500

Arrears January 2006 1,02,5,000 19,000

February 2006 3,68,000 19,500

Arrears February 2006 6,40,000 19,000

March 2006 4,97,000 19,500

Arrears March 2006 8,55,000 19,000

April 2006 4,16,000 19,500

Arrears April 2006 7,20,000 19,000

May 2006 1,16,000 19,500

Arrears May 2006 2,20,000 19,000

June 2006 3,95,000 19,500

Arrears June 2006 6,85,000 19,000

July 2006 4,94,000 19,500

Arrears of July 2006 8,50,000 19,000

August 2006 4,31,000 19,500

Arrears August 2006 7,45,000 19,000

September 2006 8,48,000 38,500

October 2006 9,52,000 38,500

November 2006 1,1,36,000 38,500

December 2006 1,0,40,000 38,500

January 2007 1,0,64,000 38,500

February 2007 1,0,68,000 38,500

March 2007 1,9,60,000 38,500

April 2007 1,2,32,000 38,500

May 2007 64,000.00 38,500

June 2007 6,08,000 38,500

July 2007 9,92,000.00 38,500

August 2007 6,80,000 38,500

September 2007 1,0,64,000 38,500

October 2007 1,2,96,000 38,500

November 2007 7,36,000 38,500

Oct’ + Dec 2007 8,80,000 38,500

January 2008 8,08,000 38,500

Jan’& Feb 2008 6,24,000 38,500

Feb & March 2008 8,96,000 38,500

Oct’ 07& March 2008 6,32,000 -

April 2008 5,00,000 27,000

May 2008 1,27,000 27,000

June 2008 5,00,000 27,000

July 2008 5,00,000 27,000

August 2008 4,43,000 27,000

September 2008 5,00,000 27,000

October 2008 3,76,000 27,000

November 2008 4,72,000 27,000

December 2008 5,00,000 27,000

January 2009 5,00,000 27,000

February 2009 5,00,000 27,000

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A tall story

2009-05-21T04:35:00.000-07:00

Social activism corporatized

For months I have wondered ‘why is the Margao-based Goa Hitkaran Manch (GHM) so heated up and as a result hyperactive over the way Pristine Homes Pvt. Ltd based in Cansaulim runs its business.’ Till the beginnings of an investigation fell into my lap, frankly, unsolicited; and I began asking around. The rest was easy. Using its considerable clout with a section of journalists who can’t be bothered with taking both points of view, GHM pressed forward its case against Pristine on the basis of a single agenda. If you hadn’t noticed, it is always about encroachments or illegalities committed by hotel constructions. In this case the agenda was only, that Pristine had taken on board a firangi. This is how it started. Serafino Cotta, owner of Dona Sa Maria and Fosm (Federation of Small and Medium Hotels and Guest Houses) president sent me ‘evidence’ he said would prove the point beyond reasonable doubt. In Goa, where anything the doer does is considered to be a favour done for the recipient, well, that didn’t happen here. The evidence landed by courier exactly 24 hours later! Exit Serafino Cotta.

The evidence unravels

The evidence according to GHM was that under regulation 4 (b) and (e) of RBI notification no. FEMA24/2000-RB, an NRI or PIO cannot invest in a firm. Fact is the firangi is Rajendra Gore, a British national, from Gujarat where he still has both land and home. GHM submits evidence of this to the sarpanch of Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim. The ‘evidence’ is Form 32 under The Companies Act, 1956 that declared Gore was appointed additional director of the company in June 2005. Fact is under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, the appointment of a foreign national as a director on the board of directors of an Indian company does not need RBI approval. Fact is also that an Indian company can also make payments in rupees towards ‘sitting fees or ‘commission’ or ‘remuneration’ and ‘travel expenses’ to even a non-whole time director. In other words in a globalized world, even India has taken the blinkers off. What GHM cleverly did was bamboozle the sarpanch with ‘evidence’ like quoting the rule book on Foreign Exchange Management (Investment in Firm or Proprietary Concern in India) Regulations 2000. The obfuscation was‘legalised’ by hiring a lawyer to send the notice to the Village Panchayat. GHM said Gore bought 500 shares at Rs 100 each in Pristine. Strangely while Form 32 (dt 20.06.05) has been duly attested (as a ‘true copy’) by the issuing authority, the Annual Return Schedule V-Part III (2006-07) issued by the Registrar of Companies was not attested. In other words GHM succeeded in getting the copy from the RoC, possibly bending a few rules, itself.

The sarpanch tells a tale

This is where I decide to talk to both the sarpanch and Tony Pereira, owner of Pristine, who admitted Gore was made director, but the shares were never transferred to him, despite the fact that the annual return does show shares in his name. He is willing to show his bank accounts to anybody willing to listen, and that he says will prove no money share transaction was ever made between Gore and him. Leave that aside for the moment. He showed me the original (sealed with wax in the style of RoC) annual returns (2005-06) that show the shares were later withdrawn, that Gore was also made director without a share holding, and that on October 18, 2008 Gore even ceased to be a director (Form 32.) Yes, that’s right I have seen the originals of all the annual returns and have copies of them with me. And by the way our firangi even has a PAN no. And yes this number is mentioned in the annual returns I have. And yes, they are attested by the RoC.

Strangely, while GHM didn’t spare anyone sending legal notices left, right and centre, it studiously refrained from lodging a complaint even with RBI or the Registrar of Companies. If they have, than they contrived not to produce it to me. Because all that needed to be done, was to ask the RBI to investigate and take the ‘criminality’ to another level altogether. Instead, it used all manner and means to cajole the sarpanch to revoke the occupancy licence. That much, and that was really quite so much, for the legal evidence from both sides.

Guess What?

Now is when the crap hits the ceiling as the saying goes. It turns out that Tony Pereira and the man who has GHM’s patronage, Pifran Fernandes, are former equal partners in Hotel Horizon, Velsao. They fell out later, and a legal case for division of their considerable assets (estimated at Rs 7-8 crore) is in the court of the District Judge of South Goa, Margao. A final order is expected May 15. It could end up in arbitration too, as the High Court has been asked to appoint an arbitrator. The High Court is expected to respond to this application in June. Whoever wins custody of the Horizon after the settlement of accounts is done, will have to pay the other half of the value of Horizon. Guess what? That’s a tidy sum. Guess what? Gore owns an apartment (bought as a rent back initially) in Horizon. Guess what? Serafino and Pifran are buddies. Guess what? Serafino Cota is the upadheokx of the Konkani Bhasha Mandal. Guess what? Nityanand Naik, who has signed all the complaints to the VP, police, is also the sor chitins of the KBM. Guess what? I guess you know that by now. My, my, they have even corporatized social activism in Goa.

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2009-05-06T04:11:00.000-07:00

Benefits now, taxes later

Tax collections have become quite a fashion in Goa these days. They appear to have every connotation you can think of including the philosophy behind taxation, except, of course, the thought of how it originally started. For the good and benefit of the taxpayer, that is. There is however one concept I would really, really like if it could be adopted. That is the concept of ‘enjoy now, pay later’ just like the travel now and pay your EMIs later that one travel company introduced but abandoned not too soon afterwards. Imagine what an ideal world it would be, if say, the Corporation of the City of Panjim had to actually give you the benefits now and taxed you later. In other words wait till you avail of the benefit, and later pay your tax, if you are satisfied with the service, that is. Not going to happen. For the record, the CCP collected a total of Rs 831.17 lakh by way of taxes in 2005-2006. In 2006-07 the figure was Rs 975.18 lakh. In 2007-08 the figure was Rs 983.05. The break up is house tax Rs 391.96 lakh, building licence fees Rs 95.52, sopo Rs 3.82 lakh, establishment licence fee Rs 11 lakh, signboard/hoardings Rs 16.43 lakh, others Rs 464.32 lakh. That’s quite impressive, though at the pace your councilors are permitting buildings to be built and signboards to be displayed, you may soon not be able to find your way home or you could get lost trying to. Imagine in your own city! Some of the scenes of traffic congestion in Panjim and Margao already look like clips from disaster films like ‘Volcano’ and ‘Independence Day’

Churchill Brothers Pvt. Ltd

In Margao where only a total ban on cars would decongest what journos have for decades loved to call the commercial capital of Goa (frankly how less commercial is Mapusa than Margao?) the tax collected in 2005-06 was Rs 583.41 lakh, and Rs 561.03 lakh in 2006-07. In 2007-08 the figure was Rs 638.39 lakh. The break up is house tax Rs 249.11, building licence fees Rs 153.53, sopo Rs 24.90 lakh, establishment licence fee Rs 14.38 lakh, signboard/hoardings Rs 10.12 lakh, others Rs 186.35 lakh. The collections look impressive on paper but only from the revenue point of view. Over the din created by Churchill Brothers Pvt. Ltd (incorporated in Varca) making charges of being backstabbed by their corporate headquarters, did you hear them speak of the woes faced by the people of Margao? No, it was only about their personal problems. Never mentioned was that Margao has no single decent civic amenity of India-class, forget world-class. Did you hear Sardinha for that matter – raising his tall stature when not looking downwards with eyes downcast – embarrassed at being rubbished by Churchill Brothers Pvt. Ltd, talking of Margao as a constituency that needed to be developed? That its civic amenities were not worth mentioning? Oh, I forgot, being an MP is all about making speeches in the Lok Sabha, and it doesn’t matter if they make no sense at all.

Where there is a will there is a way

Then there is Mormugao that collected a total tax of Rs Rs 591.11 in 2007-08 and Mapusa - Rs 389.78, Ponda -Rs 134.75 lakh and Bicholim -Rs 144.35 lakh, and Canacona which at a tax collection of Rs 112.43 lakh rounded up the municipalities that have revenue collections of above one hundred lakhs. Of real note here is the fact that the total of 14 muncipalities collected Rs 486.15 lakh as building licence fees. That shouldn’t surprise you. What should is the fact that the Margao’s licence fee collection at Rs 153.53 lakh was far bigger than Panjim’s at Rs 95.52 lakh. This makes me recall for instance of where I worked in the past and of how efficient municipalities transformed Hyderabad.

The tech-savvy Chandrababu Naidu, may have ignored farmers committing suicide in the rural areas, but he transformed Hyderabad into Cyberabad. Every neighbourhood had an e-seva counter where you could pay your property tax, electricity bill, telephone bill, water tax. The people behind the desktop’s were efficient and polite and what would have taken hours in the past after standing in serpentine queues was over in minutes. That’s why Naidu became the darling of the middle classes and was allowed to preen as the CEO of Andhra Pradesh.

And when President Bill Clinton came visiting Hyderabad in 2000, Naidu presented him with a driving licence that had been readied with the click of a few buttons in just a few minutes. Clinton was very impressed just like he was with the city which shouted out to anyone who visited that taxes were being ploughed back to improve the city’s infrastructure. By the way, this year the annual income of the Greater Hyderabad Municpal Corporation is around Rs 1,100 crore that includes property tax collections and through advertisements, trade licenses and building permissions. Want to bet on where it will go?

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Eureka!!

2009-04-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

Ho, Ho, Ho

Though Christmas is months away and there’s the monsoon to come first, I am constrained to use the term exhilarated because Panjim’s First Lady Caroline Po’s Eureka-like recognition of the fact that Panjim has both garbage and parking problems, brought that out. Nasty me. Seriously, Archimedes, as he was washing, thought of a manner of computing the proportion of gold in King Hiero's crown by seeing the water flowing over the bathing-stool. He leaped up as one possessed or inspired, crying, 'I have found it! Eureka!'. Some say he did all that in the nude. Do you see some semblance now? To think that for all these years I thought the garbage was someone’s eco idea of dressing up Goa’s environmentally abused (on the river as well) capital. Thus my expression of joy at being relieved of this illusion. After all, if the Chinese can make eco-friendly keyboards from bamboo, I thought garbage was that someone’s generic idea of using colourful waste to brighten up our alleys and countryside. And if you think I am joking, drive down nights past the temple at Mapusa and be amazed by the phenomenon of shinning plastic. A colleague says it is the light reflected by plastic garbage that creates the reflected yellow haze all round. Anyway, after Po removes all the few rotting cars and bikes, one dearly hopes she turns her attention to the overwhelmingly more shops and garages that have usurped their frontages. Quite a few I named in this column not too long ago.

Death Wish

Churchill Alemao appears to have a death wish of the worst kind. I am trying to figure out if it’s the kind taht Charles Bronson acted out in ‘Death Wish’ and the film’s four sequels. Is it the kind bloodthirsty rioters show towards equally bloodletting anti-riot police by literally braving their bared chests? You see that in communal riots. The script in this latest confrontation with his party of the day call him a serialized rebel) is that Mickky Pacheco is hell bent on disqualifying him, and if he can take two down with one shot, that would include Churchill’s brother Joaquim Alemao as well. That much the janta knows. What few know is that Vishwajit Rane is pulling Mickky’s strings. So, while Mickky gets to screw the happiness of his arch enemy, Vishwajit gets to use him, and the whole world gets to think Churchill has a Death Wish. What Vishwajit does not know is that two plus two, do not add up to what Mickky and him think it adds up to. But, if you read the earlier line carefully, it is clear Vishwajit doesn’t care. Churchill is worse than the most raged bull in the China shop you can think of and there is no way on earth that political peace can reign over Goa if he is disqualified. Period. So what are Mickky and Vishwajit achieving? After talking to some of the cleverest politicians in town, this is what I gathered -nobody really knows. Mind you Mickky and Vishwajit have fined tuned their act (you think) to the extent if the government falls, father, Pratapsing Rane, is still the Speaker, and can disqualify Churchill at any time. They say there’s no real gameplan here, it’s just that Vishwajit wants to be the greater of all the evils around and forever hold his Devil’s trident threateningly over the heads of Digambar Kamat and GPCC president Subhash Shirodkar. And since they are both not in the Congress, they make the Congress look like dung. That and that only, and about the only thing that makes sense in this huge farce being played out on an election eve. WOW, it’s got to be Goa.

YippEE it’s IFFI

To conclude here are details of the remaining expense overheads incurred by this government to hold that mother-of-all headaches for people living in Panjim and especially in Campal. If you recall, the last time I gave you three of the ten overheads. These are the others. Make what you will of it.

Event Management Agency -1

Alternate Brands Pvt. Ltd (of the Times Group) -Rs 1,55,98,200

Artists -2

Local artists –Rs 1,22,38,279
Others –Rs 16,43,265
Installations (Kerkar Art complex) –Rs 3,50,000
Stages at smaller venues –Rs 9,50,000

Total: Rs 1,51,81,544

Exp-Short Film Centre -3

Accommodation/lunch –Rs 4,87,629
Jury sitting fees –Rs 1,38,000
Prizes –Rs 12,96,580
Travel –Rs 1,54,424
Misc –Rs 29,212

Total: Rs 21,05,845

Car Rentals -4

Majid Daud Khan –Rs 1,89,750
Vailankani Auto Hires –Rs 10,00,000

Total: Rs 11,89,750

Exp-Film Bazaar -5
Goa Marriott Resort –Rs 11,54,861
AVI Audio Visuals –Rs 6,81,014
Ranjan Kamath –Rs 2,00,000

Total: Rs 20,35,875

Printing & Stationery -6

Total: Rs 20,91,978

Delegates Travel -7

Vinsan Travel Assistance Bureau –Rs 1,01,91,507
Reimbursements/transfers/cheques –Rs 4,67,618
Kingfisher Airlines –Rs 27,32,059
Air India –Rs 2,28,236

Total: Rs 1,36,19,420

Publicity Expenses –Rs 17,54,148

Add this to the three expense overheads written about last week, and it adds up to Rs 6,73,12,814 of your misspent bucks. Yet your taps still run dry, your garbage piles up and your power fails you like never before.

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A Costly Extravaganza

2009-04-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Emperor rules

Would the Maquinez Palace at the Old GMC precinct in Campal, Panjim have been better off if the Entertainment Society of Goa had simply pawned it off to that Dilli mall wallah. Many think so. Now look what you have to put up with; a luxurious, just-can’t afford, tamasha called International Film Festival of India. And by the way, four years down the line, it has not only not become the Cannes of India but it’s not even getting there. The star power went out of the festival because of the criticism that the festival could not attract A-listers, but that was supposed to be replaced by meaningful cinema and premieres of much-looked-forward to films. But that ain’t happening by a long shot.

It’s just an expensive extravaganza. Costly because it cost Rs 10,35,92,909 in 2005-06, Rs 14,63,01,925 in 2006-07 and Rs 11,65,55,195 in 2007-08… that’s a humungous Rs 36,64,50,029. Only in Goa, did you say? But you can’t blame the Entertainment Society of Goa for this wasteful expenditure - it’s the emperors who rule from the Secretariat on the hill that decide how tax money is to be wasted. It’s just that only the ESG (being in the front line) gets the stick from us. I said wasteful, because even ESG admitted IFFI did not have the required brand image for the event management company to be able to get enough sponsorships of the money kind. Though it must be said Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd of the Times Group did get paid a whopping Rs 4,49,440 and Rs 1,55,98,200 as organizational expenses. There are the beneficiaries of course like the two 5-Star hotels that skim off the cream, so to speak, year in and year out. For example, in 2005-06 a total of Rs 2,12,97,010 was spent on boarding and lodging (in all hotels), in 2006-07 a total of Rs 1,04,62,560 was incurred and in 2007-08 the figure was Rs 1,23,37,876 (see detailed boarding/lodging figures below.)

Organizational Expenses -1
Inox Leisure Ltd - Rs 6,27,853
Goa Heritage Action Group - Rs 40,000
Universal Studios - Rs 86,240
Felicitation of film personalities MIB
(Ministry for Information and Broadcasting) - Rs 2,10,593
Interpreters - Rs 5,000
Miscellaneous expenses - Rs 14,056
Dinner/Stay for Union Minister of State (MoS, GoI) - Rs 45,041
Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd (function) - Rs 4,49,440
IFFI Guide –Arnab Banerjee - Rs 15,000
Hiring TVs for ticketing centre - Rs 1,15,000
Hire of walkie-talkies - Rs 26,100
Hire of computers - Rs 1,73,600
Honorarium for festival executives - Rs 2,35,1550
Total: Rs 41,59,473

Boarding/Lodging -2
Panaji Residency - Rs 17,636
Bawa International - Rs 7,35,716
Cidade de Goa - Rs 60,10,291
Aury Mendes Representations -Rs 1,02,741
Hotel Ashok - Rs 39,110
Circuit House - Rs 200
Goa Marriott – Rs 24,54,56
Hotel Campal – Rs 7,560
Class City Investments – Rs 6,62,549
JW Marriott – Rs 26,169
Total: Rs 78,47,428

This was the way in which the RTI information was handed over to me, so I simply can’t help you decipher what some of the non-hotel names represent. Your guess is as good as mine, they are hotels all right, and I suspect trying hard to keep the tax man at bay.

Exp-IFFI TV -3
Whistling Woods International - Rs 13,29,699
Ginger Hotels – Rs 3,71,451
Viegas Vision – Rs 22,000
Vinay Electricals – Rs 6,000
Total: Rs 17,29,150
Export Film Bazaar -4
Goa Marriott – Rs 11,54,861
AVI Audio Visuals – Rs 6,81,014
Ranjan Kamath – Rs 2,00,000
Total: Rs 20,35,875

There are in all 11 expense overheads incurred by IFFI. What you have seen are just four of them. Makes you wonder why successive governments compete to hold IFFI. Could it be for the benefit of the tourism industry? Looks like that. You wouldn’t be off the mark also if you wondered from the little evidence before, why appoint an event management agency to host IFFI if you must pay festival executives a princely sum of Rs 23,51,550 to do (from the generous payout) apparently a sizeable amount of the groundwork. Considering also, the groundwork covered in this column thus far is only worth Rs 1,57,71,926 of the Rs 6,73,12,814 spent to foist IFFI on you and me. And as I pointed out last week, Rs 1 crore from that was paid to Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd., Mumbai, a Times Group company that successfully bid and won the tender to organize the IFFI-2008.

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Chill, Dude

2009-04-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

Take a Rest(yl) Agent S

Over the space and time of three columns titled ‘GIDC’s cover-ups,’ ‘We the People,’ and ‘Is the pot calling the kettle black’ the activities of a certain Agent S and Agent B in ‘arranging’ plots at various industrial estates were exposed. Well, this really pissed off Agent S who has unsuccessfully tried to elicit information on how I got hold of all that information (not RTI Btw) or rather who my informants are. Not happening Agent S, I belong to the old school of journos –hard as rock, just ask around. But, I humbly recommend you take Restyl, say 0.25 mg daily, and calm down. Among the ‘volunteers’ he asked for help or has been pledged help, is a man from Margao who sometimes writes. All this makes me wonder why Nitin Kuncolienkar moaned that Goa’s activism was detrimental to industry progressing. Point is when there is so much of business like for instance the kind described in those columns it does mean Goa has nothing to worry about. After all, you can’t expect all businesses’ to be registered with the BSE or, for that matter the Register of Companies, can you?

Land of honey

Exactly what I mean. There’s money to be made in Goa and again you really don’t need PriceWaterhouse to tell you how. Look what it did for Satyam. It cost your government Rs 6,73,12,814 to host, err foist on you and me, the International Film Festival of India, 2008, as of February 19, 2009 as per the Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG.) If you read between the lines, it could mean there is more to come. Sometimes making money in Goa is not the main dish, it is only the garnish. And this time, the Government of India did not invest a pie. This is how it all started. The ESG as is routine now, called for bids from event management companies (EMA) in a two bid system –technical and financial. Three EMAs Wizcraft Pvt. Ltd., Mumbai, Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd. (ABSL), Mumbai and Brilliant Entertainment Networks, New Delhi, qualified to bid. As I have been saying continuously in the past, nothing Goa does, ever benefits aam admi companies or aam admi for that matter, not even holding the annual St. Francis Xavier’s feast. An evaluation committee of the government’s all-time favourite men and woman (not a typo) using an evaluation criterion and point system later allotted them marks.

Keeping the natives out

The eligibility criteria are 10 marks given for a minimum Rs 45 crore cumulative turnover in the past three financial years. Five additional marks for cummulative turnover above Rs 45 crore but below Rs 80 crore in the three years. Five additional marks for cummulative turnover above Rs 80 crore in the same three years. Reminds you of the TV serial ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway’ produced by comedian Drew Carey. More the cumulative turnover, lesser the points. That’s the perverse way Drew Carey gives his actor-comedians points sometimes, adding a huge fun element to the show. Jokes apart, what a Brilliant (pun intended) way to keep the natives out. Sheer Wizcraft huh. As if to mark up their brilliance a notch, ESG allotted two marks per each international event and one mark per national event organized during the same period.

More ways than one

Then there are marks awarded for a sponsorship criteria that went like this. If a bidder had between Rs 100 lakh and Rs 500 lakh of cumulative sponsorship in the same three years, ten marks were awarded. For above Rs 500 lakh and Rs 10 crore, ten additional marks were awarded. For above Rs 20 crore of cumulative sponsorship, ten additional marks were awarded. Silly me, I didn’t ask ESG to show evidence of proof of turnover and sponsorship ability. But, I’m learning fast. Not that it has any (I am sure of that) or, the means for that matter to verify the evidence, but then again in the land of ordinances proof of life is never necessary. For the record ABSL of the Times Group got the maximum marks and were awarded the EMA contract.

But wait, where are all the sponsorships? The high-flying ABSL could bring in only Rs 1 crore, which means IFFI 2008 cost the Goa government a whopping Rs 5,73,12,814 because ABSL could bring only a miserly Rs 1 crore to the table. ESG understandably blames it (low sponsorship) on the ‘tugs and pulls’ between it and the Directorate of Film Festivals, also on the ‘lack of brand image for IFFI.’ Notwithstanding that, shouldn’t it be mandatory for high-flying EMAs to stick to their declared reputations especially when it concerns sponsorship commitments. No excuses, please. ESG did after all ignore the natives and go pan-India allegedly to tap the best.

Tailpiece: A rival has been arm twisting freelance journalists earning their money the hard way from writing for Herald2day. It’s happened twice so far. Oh dear, the rival doesn’t know it takes two to Tango. Let the Tango begin.

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Traffic Jam on the Mandovi

2009-04-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

A ‘Touch and Go’ problem

I love this turn of phrase coined by the Captain of Ports Department because it describes exactly how this government lives – precariously. Everything it does is usually ‘up in the air.’ A case in point is the eight pleasure boats that were not permitted to dock at the jetty alongside DB Bandodkar Marg. It was revealed during the recent Assembly session that the eight boats were issued ‘touch and go’ permission which means they can only embark and disembark passengers. It’s a different matter these vessels are nearly always, except when cruising down the congested Mandovi, permanently in a ‘touch’ position. Either that or, I need a cataract operation done. There you are, didn’t I tell you this government is as vague as vague can be? The other turn of phrase that will always stay with me is ‘adaptive reuse’. The Entertainment Society of Goa coined that when it tried to lease the Maquinez Palace to a mall owner from Dilli some time back. Mercifully, that one could never reinvent itself and went into adaptive disuse but this one (touch and go) however could regrettably go to the wire.

Floating sumos -2

Last week, I pointed to the floating elephants in the River Mandovi and their lengths – Santa Monica (33.5 x 10 x 3.35m) owned by the Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) and Swastik (43.5 x 12 x 3m) owned by Swastik Cruises. This is the full list of the herd: Emerald Prince (21.75 x 8.2 x 1.5m), Kapil (22.5 x 9 x 2.85m), Paradise (30 x 10 x 3m) Blessing – owned by Swastik Cruises (24 x 7.5 2.3m), Shantadurga – owned by GTDC (24.9 x 8.36 x 2.61m), Malvika (25.5 x 6 x 2.32m), Swastik Vijaye –Swastik Cruises (16 x 5 x 1.5m), Alexander (11.75 x 3.7 x 1.68m), Columbus (11.75 x 3.7 x 1.68m), Napoleon (11.75 x 3.7 x 1.68m), Vasco da Gama (11.75 x 3.7 x 1.68) – all owned by Sea Scan Pleasure Cruises, Barcolento (29 x 6.1 x 1.83m), Princess de Goa (37 x 12 x 3.2m), Noah’s Ark –owned by Mundas Hospitality (33.53 x 6.7 x 1.51m), Carnival (24 x 6.27 x 2.54m), Paradise-11 (36 x 14 x 3m), and Coral Queen (30 x 11.5 x 3m).

It all adds up to DISASTER

There must be big money to be made on the much abused Mandovi because Kapil, Malvika and Princess de Goa are owned by Priyadarshani River Cruises, while Paradise and Paradise-11 are owned by Paradise Ventures. Add these to the dimensions I gave you last week of the casinos and it all amounts to frankly too much floating bulbous bow (the bulging forward part of a ship) in only a short length of the Mandovi. Add these all to 219 of the 641 barges registered in Goa (wonder where the others are?) and you have an Expressway of danger. Add that to the water carrying or bunkering vessels that ply up and down the river supplying barges with either water or fuel. Add that to the 20 under-50 passenger capacity vessels. And, you have a sum total of 258, all moving up or downstream. Now, imagine what happens when a Panjim-Betim ferry with its single engine fails one day to zebra cross past a barge or vessel bearing down on it. One word –DISASTER.

And more

It isn’t only the Panjim waterfront that is congested. There are 218 passenger and parasailing boats with official permission to operate on various beaches. Add that to god-knows-how many boats operating without NOCs and there is danger lurking everywhere because to this figure, you need to add 71 mostly FRP passenger boats, water scooters, etc.

Tailpiece: The names of people and so-called writers arm-twisted into defending the mother-of-all ordinances has added up to quite a neat figure. Some were more audacious than others, like the one who called the rest of us ‘empty vessels.’ Other vassals using what I can only describe as language carpentry begged, borrowed and stole meanings to define ‘public interest.’ One language carpenter even brought out his gardening tools. Reading the Herald, I understood for the first time that ‘public’ means ‘one person’ only, okay two, if you must insist. And that ‘interest’ means pursuit of an individual’s happiness. Now Digambar Kamat and his 38 men and one woman will have to pass an Ordinance that will facilitate changing the meaning of ‘public’ and ‘interest’ in all school textbooks. I guess, so they can put the final nail into our collective coffin, they could call it the ‘Public Interest Ordinance’ and pre-date it to come into effect before the mother-of-all ordinances. Now, that’s what you could call transparency in government.

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