Between the budget lines
Welcome to yet another edition of Gerard’s Gazette, a weekly newsletter, in which I attempt to break down the events of the week gone by, offer a bit of context, as well as a dose of news behind the news.
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It’s been one helluva week. From a protest at Old Goa, to a three-day budget session and the dreaded decision of schools reopening in April this week has been quite a roller coaster, that unfortunately is only going downhill. Stay with me while I take you through it.
Between the budget lines
To the budget then. That two-hour, twenty-minute-long speech that was delivered on Wednesday evening by the Chief Minister outlining how he’s going to spend the state’s money over the coming financial year beginning April 01. And I say, spend and not earn, because he’s left taxes, at least the ones he still has control of -- liquor, fuel, casinos -- unchanged.
So what’s there to write home about from the long budget speech? In truth, there’s not too much. There’s a list of projects that the government plans and projects as well as proposals for each department -- you can find the entire speech (if you can read Devanagari Konkani) here.
But what caught my eye was this part:
In order to have better planning prospects, the Steering Committee of [the] TCP Department will be strengthened by involving multiple stakeholders, including heads of government department[s] who are crucial in the planning aspect of the State Government. Further, the approvals for mega residential/commercial projects shall be decided by this committee, and the decision taken by the Steering Committee shall be binding on all departments. An assessment of the carrying capacity of the state will be carried out, and planning will be accordingly done in order to achieve the goal of Viksit Goa and Vikasit Bharat, 2047.
What does this mean? In simple words, it means that instead of only one minister having a say in which mega project to allow in Goa – like Bhutani, House of Abhinandan Lodha, etc. – such decisions will now be made by a ‘steering’ committee of the Town and Country Planning Department – a committee that is headed by the Chief Minister. Project proponents will now have to convince not one – but (at least) two ministers besides the chief minister.
The one-man show of the Town and Country Planning Department seems to be coming to an end. And why might that be?
The answer to that is, interestingly, hidden in the pages of the state economic survey 2024-25 that was tabled in the legislative assembly this week.
Have a look at it and notice how between 2020-21 and this year (2024-25), the Town and Country Planning Department leapfrogged other departments to become the single largest source of (non tax) revenue for the Goa government – nearly tripling between 2022-23 and 2023-24. What you are staring at in the table above is quite literally the tip of the iceberg.
It is this pie that the steering committee is eying a slice of.
But is this for the best? On one hand, having more people in charge means things will not be run at the whims and fancies of a single person. But on the other hand, it still doesn’t take planning into the hands of the people it actually belongs to -- the grassroots.
In fact, the line – the decision taken by the Steering Committee shall be binding on all departments – only means that we now have a new all-powerful committee whose decisions everyone, including PWD, the newly created department of drinking water and, most importantly, village panchayats and gram sabhas, will have to abide by. In other words, this proposal is nothing but yet another investment promotion board with a different name this time, specialising in real estate projects.
School reopening: Sh*t just got real
And so here we have it. The much-dreaded official announcement is here. On the evening of March 28, barely nine days in advance, the Goa government, via an order issued by the director of education, has officially indicated that the beginning of the school academic year 2025-26 is being shifted to April 7, departing from a long-standing practice of commencing with the academic year to coincide with the onset of the monsoon.
The ‘final’ notification comes barely days after the government told the Bombay High Court at Goa, which was hearing a petition filed by a group of parents opposing the move, that the move to shift the academic year was only a draft notification and a final decision would be taken after the period of submitting objections concludes and after the government considered the said objections and suggestions.
The period for submitting objections to the draft rules ended on March 27, and the very next day, March 28, the Director of Education issued the ‘final notification’. The government claims to have considered all 4,000-odd objections to the draft rules within a period of less than 24 hours and arrived at a final decision.
All in all, this means that the decision was predetermined. The process of notifying the draft rules (which began after parents approached the High Court) and keeping it open for objections was a mere formality to try and ensure that they are compliant with operational procedure while still trying to push through the hare-brained plan. This clearly points to ‘non-application of mind’, a phrase that could come in real handy, should the parents now decide (as they should) to once again approach the High Court against the final rules.
Imagine taking a decision as seismic as shifting the academic year by a whole two months, and all you give parents and everyone else involved in the school ecosystem is just ten days to come to terms with the change.
Even in neighbouring Maharashtra, which is also BJP ruled, the elected government hasn’t bent over backwards to please the higher-ups and force through a shift in the state’s academic year. It’s only Goa that is being as obsequious as it is.
The question is, why? Like thousands of others, I too have been scratching my head over why the government would want to do this. There is no obvious reason why the government should have to force through such a major change unless there was a compelling reason to do so. There is none.
But now, I’ve finally hit upon what I think might be the answer.
I found it in an opinion piece in The Frontline by Saba Naqvi. The answer lies in the BJP and RSS ideology – an ideology that seeks to build a ‘uniform nation’ (as seen in the various pushes for ‘one nation, one this’ and ‘one nation, one that’). Diversity is seen as a threat, or as Naqvi puts it, What we are up against is “an ideological thrust that seeks to flatten the curves in Indian identities into one uniform nation where diversity could be interpreted as a threat to national integration.”
And so, students and parents be damned. The dream is to have a uniform calendar, syllabus, language policy and possibly even a single board examination for students across the country, all in the name of the ideology. Stalin (ironically, not the current Tamil Nadu Chief Minister) would be so proud.
There’s a public meeting against school in April to be held at Margao’s Lohia Maidan today (Sunday) at 4pm. If you are someone who is against the idea of classes in April, make your voice heard by being present there.
Tourism’s plans cannoned
Last Thursday the earthmoving moved into the Survey Nos 154/1, 2 and 3 -- the plot of land diagonally opposite the Basilica of Bom Jesus on the rear side of Convent of Santa Monica -- and began clearing the land to make way for the construction of a Tourist Information Centre at the location.
The Tourist Information Centre, which is to be a two-storeyed building consisting of a lower ground floor and a ground floor with a total area of 12,000 square feet that was to host shops, restaurants, other amenities and an interpretation or information centre for tourists visiting the Old Goa Complex. This building was being built under the Union government’s PRASAD (Pilgrim Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive) scheme to set up tourist facilities around the pilgrimage site.
Several horrendous things happened in the process. The place was carelessly cleared. Long standing tall trees were hacked; the earth was excavated, and the material was carted off on a makeshift road built by dumping material over what are quite clearly the ruins of a chapel that once existed on site -- the niches of the sidewalls still clearly visible.
Work was stopped after members of the Save Old Goa Action Committee raised a hue and cry and called the police. Later the Archaeological Survey of India would claim that it is they who stopped the work after cannonballs were found on site. In truth, they were completely absent even as work progressed.
For now, work has stopped. Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte told the Goa Legislative Assembly, which discussed the issue earlier this week, that work would not resume unless the ASI, which has now agreed to document the site, gives the go-ahead.
But several questions remain. Why was it started despite objections from the Church? How did the work start so carelessly? As was pointed out in the Legislative Assembly debate, why was there no archaeological expert overseeing the clearing of the plot?
Old Goa isn’t home to just the structures and monuments that we see standing today. It was an expansive city that extended right up to Pilar and Goa Velha (San Andre) on the other side of the plateau. The northern side of the city along the River Mandovi itself extended across three hills -- the first hill contains monuments like the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount (that was also in ruins until 2001 but has since been restored by the Fundacao Oriente), the ruins of the convent of the Discalced Carmelites, the College of St Paul, etc.; the second hill, known as the Monte de Boa Vista, which today hosts the restored Cruz dos Milagres Retreat Centre; and the third called Holy Hill which has the Convent of Santa Monica, the ruins of the Augustinian Monastery, etc. The last two are now bisected by the four-lane highway now passing through.
Which brings me to the real demand of the Save Old Goa Action Committee, mention of which was completely missing from the assembly discussion – that of a demand for a master plan for Old Goa that will map and protect the hundreds of structures of cultural, heritage and religious significance that continue to dot the landscape – not only will this boost tourism and curiosity but will also help give the tourist and the devotee a more wholesome experience – much better than simply building a building – however good-looking – with spaces that you can later rent out for a profit.
The master plan was first mooted during the tenure of Digambar Kamat as Chief Minister; a committee was formed, they held a few meetings, but there was no further progress, allegedly under pressure from former Cumbarjua MLA Pandurang Madkaikar, who built himself a huge palatial bungalow within what would have been the area covered by the plan. The 2012 BJP manifesto too promised the government would bring the plan to fruition, but nothing has moved since then.
Legal luminary passes on
Before I conclude, I must take my hat off to Justice Eurico Santana da Silva, a noted jurist and former judge of the Bombay High Court at Goa, who passed away in the early hours of Friday at his ancestral home in Margao.
Born on May 10, 1933, in Margao, he served as a judge both during the Portuguese as well as subsequent Indian rule. He was first appointed judge as Julgado Municipal Especial of Ponda on December 6, 1957. He was promoted to civil judge, senior division, and judicial magistrate first class on April 20, 1964. Justice Silva was later appointed as chief judicial magistrate, Goa, Daman and Diu, on April 18, 1974.
Appointed as District and Sessions Judge, South Goa, Margao, on February 4, 1981, Justice Silva was elevated to the Bench of the Bombay High Court as Additional Judge on July 30, 1990, and posted as Permanent Judge at the Panaji Bench of the same High Court. He retired from the bench of the Bombay High Court on May 9, 1995, after more than 38 years of judicial service. He later headed the State Police Complaints Authority for many years.
Interestingly, his son Carlo, who is serving as the chief judicial magistrate (CJM) at Margao, is currently battling a case in the Bombay High Court at Goa alleging that he was unfairly overlooked for promotion and has filed a Writ Petition in the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court asking the administration to prepare a seniority list of the subordinate judicial officers in all courts in Goa -- something the court registrar agreed to do.
He was reportedly superseded to the district and sessions court by two of his juniors. The two juniors, now district and sessions judges, have also been impleaded in this writ petition.
That’s all I have for you this week. Make sure you comment or write in, should you have something, anything to say.
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Until next week, then. Tchau!
Beautifully penned. Very informative.
Eye opening as usual. The 11,000 crore figure for revenue raised by the TCP in the past year is staggering, and to think even more money has lined pockets. I guess that much money must truly make people cross-eyed because I can't imagine selling out one's beautiful land and integrity for anything less.
The school start date story is also insightful. I hope parents start a movement against the brainwashing that is likely to come. Maybe consider home schooling because in my experience, extra curricular activities can help students more than a weak academic system that isn't preparing children for future jobs.