Our Festival of Lights is here but in Goa its gloom and doom on all fronts. There can be no festivity with potholed roads everywhere, very erratic water and power supply. Besides, due to lack of vision and prompt corrective measures, the Goan economy is in a muddle bringing no cheer to the small businesses in particular.
We are facing the brunt of the endless greed of our current politicians who are adding more concrete buildings to an already badly battered Goa without caring to first put the basic infrastructure in place and with no respect for our fragile environment. The garbage and sewage discharge problem has reached a point of crisis with the government having miserably also failed to tackle even the stray dogs and cattle issue. Proper healthcare needs to be provided to the poorest of the poor in hospitals and health centers across the State as we cannot allow young lives to be lost on account of dengue and malaria. Creating quality educational facilities and delivering on a good and dependable public transport system should have also been the thrust of those in Power. Instead they have successfully transformed Goa into a Gambling, Prostitution, Narcotics and Crime hub.
But frankly nothing was ever expected from an inept Pramod Sawant as Chief Minister who has been only busy glorifying himself at public functions while his utter failure to lead the State out of the muddle is there for all to see. For a State exchequer reeling under acute financial distress, as an austerity measure the government should have stayed away from pompously hosting that 37th meeting of the GST Council while also not funding and being part of that extravagant Vibrant Goa Summit. On account of the intentional follies of this uncaring government we are today left to partake in the Festival of Darkness with not even a glimmer of hope or a chink of light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Let us hope that this government burns its demons of personal greed, neglect and incompetence so that the people of Goa can celebrate a victory of good over evil and by so doing we can hope and pray for a miracle that under a new Messiah Diwali 2020 will be full of glow and a Festival of Light worth celebrating.
