It is very disappointing to note that year after year the state exemplifies its helplessness when faced with the trials and tribulations associated with the arrival of monsoon. Lessons learnt from the past somehow fail to have any impression on the administration that grappled with similar situations with the setting of the wet climate over the region earlier.
But what has driven the public to the point of desperation has been the languorous attitude of the authorities who just refuse to come to terms with the vagaries of a typical weather that calls for ever-readiness to tackle situations that may spiral out of control in the wink of an eye.
Moreover, the inability of the government to address problems that assail the local populace during the initial rains cannot be hidden citing reasons of ‘unforeseen circumstances’ having caught it unawares. With unseasonal rains and pre-monsoon deluges playing havoc with the lives of citizens almost every year, one would have thought that the administration would have girded up its loins to tackle such eventualities so that repeats of disasters akin to the earlier ones never occur again.
But alas! The manner in which it has been treating every incident as a one-off happening, finding it needless to fortify the state against nature’s backlashes, speaks volumes for the lethargy exhibited by the administration under these trying circumstances.
The ‘as-is-where-is’ response that typifies the state government’s disaster management methods needs to be discarded for the more modern techniques that pride itself on the state of readiness they have the state in.
However, faced with such onerous tasks, Goa has been very conspicuous by its annual tradition of delaying whatever little it has been doing to help the locals tide over the rigours of the monsoon. Where various departments should have worked in tandem to make life that much easier for the public, their obvious inactivity year after year has thrown daily life helter-skelter for the locals during the period of rains. The PWD for instance!
Driving has always been an ordeal on Goan roads and with the onset of monsoon it has been all the more cumbersome. For that matter, commuting during the rainy season has come with its own tales of horrors and miseries with the person along for the ride cursing everything from the pot-hole ‘studded’ roads to the recklessness of fellow-drivers whose antics on the roads defy all perceptions of sensible and safe driving.
To begin with, the PWD has no qualms about pushing ahead with its agenda of temporary-asphalting of patches on various stretches of roads unmindful of the impending period of wet-spells. It is as if the department has always had the comforts of the travelling public uppermost in its mind and wouldn’t want them to experience the perils of roads that have all along cried for immediate attention.
However, the sudden flurry of activities on the thoroughfares of the state no sooner the Cumulonimbus clouds darken the overhead sky fascinate the members of the public no more considering that the perennial repair works have not brought much relief to them earlier either. Very much as farcical and meaningless as the pre-monsoon maintenance works carried out by the electricity department every year, tending to pot-holed roads has been the favourite pastime of the Public Works Department.
In fact the road-tax levied by the Transport Department on vehicles during registration ceases to have any relevance when the roads that are to be traversed upon do not confirm to the standards expected. The abysmal condition of the roads needs to be taken cognizance of by the RTO who, as the designated authority on safe travelling, should be coordinating with other departments involved ensuring that motorists are not put to inconvenience for no fault of theirs. But the Transport Department is conspicuous by its insensitiveness to the driver’s plight, concerning itself largely with the penalisation for traffic infringements instead.
But that is not to say that these ‘departmental’ shortcomings absolve members of the public who create unnecessary issues on the roads with their irresponsible driving during the wet-season of adding to the monsoon woes.
However, the electricity department comes across as the main villains during the monsoons. Considering the spate of power outages the state has been experiencing over the past few weeks, the schedule of electrical shut-downs the department has arranged in order to attend to pre-monsoon maintenance works on overhead lines and at various sub-station yards ceases to have any relevance. It is like closing the stable gate after the horse has bolted!
The long hours spent in repairing damaged lines and feeders do not justify the subsequent shut-downs taken for the maintenance of the same. This would mean that the electricity department, while attending to emergencies after sudden disruptions in power, only concerned itself with restoring it ‘somehow’ without giving a thought to arresting similar occurrences in future.
The erratic power supply to various parts of the state in recent days more than vindicates the contention. The very fact that the department has failed so miserably to arrest the frequent stalling further lends weight to the argument that a lack of proper fault-detection mechanism adds to the overall shortcomings.
So far, while a shortage of adequate personnel affected the workings of the department, it is as if the locals will now have to put up with a lack of infrastructure that threatens them with the sudden ‘bouts’ of power failure.
Moreover when the state’s Power Minister too pleads his inability to assure Goans uninterrupted power supply all through the year immediately, the locals do not have much to look forward to vis-à-vis the power scenario in the state either! For a state that banks on the central government loans and grants to improve its power supply, continuing its operations with obsolete equipment appears too lame an excuse to describe the pathetic ‘dark sessions’ which has engulfed the state.
For, isn’t the Goa government too very much in the ‘saffron mould’ as the centre for it to be denied any central assistance! As has been rightly observed, it is ‘maintenance apathy’ more than anything else that has contributed to the current situation.
Rather than wait for the onset of the wet-spell to commence repairs and protection works to the existing lines, feeders, conductors and transformers, maximum utilisation of existing set-up and immediate improvement in infrastructure should save the state from intermittent spells of darkness that it has been experiencing of late. That is the level of readiness exhibited by various departments of the government when dealing with a climate that has all the potential to evolve into one that has cataclysmic consequences.
To add to the misery, the hyper-active social media agog with startling messages on weather forecasts and advisories on snap climatic changes the region could expect adds to the public fear quotient. With the cycle of climatic changes following an uncertain patter these days, it is imperative that the administration gears up for all such contingencies that could have a telling effect on the lives of the people.