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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