The appointment of the very knowledgeable and articulate Sanjit Rodrigues as the Chief Executive Officer of Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) is an apt decision and a step in the right direction. But it may be too late while the current officials have been trying to wriggle out of the mess they have created in the city by claiming that they did not have the old plans of utility lines laid beneath the roads. The IPSCDL should have embarked on the works only after having done proper groundwork. They proceeded in haste and made a mess of the whole city.
The works should have been done in a phased manner after ascertaining all the ground realities and not digging the whole city and inconveniencing the citizens and especially the elderly who have been inhaling enormous dust for the last few months and moving on perilous roads.
We can all see that the works being carried out are so shoddy and extremely substandard. The contractors need to be blacklisted. Also, the guilty IPSCDL officials cannot be allowed to go scot free. Rightly there is apprehension that the city will be in a worse state than it was with all these unsmart works being carried out to wilfully empty the state coffers for the benefit of the politicians in power. We will have to wait for the monsoons to set in to see the real state of Panaji.
The blame game and washing of hands has been underway. The MLA excuses himself blaming the engineers. The mayor denies having direct responsibility. The IPSCDL officials have been pleading lack of information and ignorance of vital plans. Yet mysteriously, a large part of the capital city was indiscriminately dug up and left to inconvenience and endanger the people and the environment at a huge expense to the taxpayer by the blind leading the blind. The abdication of responsibility and accountability is unacceptable and tragically does not bode well for the continuing colossal damage to the infrastructure of Panaji because of those incompetent, inefficient and clueless officials.
The politicians and officials should have known all along that ‘by failing to prepare, you are planning to fail’ a famous quote used by Benjamin Franklin, a founding father of America and so must face the brunt for the colossal damage they have done to Panaji and its people.
