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Goa's clean-up drives vendor to suicide

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Public streets and markets in Goa's towns now look cleaner and more spacious, thanks to the Bombay high court. But at least 5,000 hawkers and kiosk-owners have been deprived of their livelihoods in the process.

The suicide by a displaced cloth vendor, who left behind his wife and two children, has sent a wave of shock and anguish through the tiny state.

The traders have now moved the Supreme Court to postpone the action till the authorities rehabilitate them.

Neither the government nor the presidents of the 13 elected municipalities in Goa could explain why they have still not prepared any rehabilitation plan for the supposedly illegal traders, since the high court had given its direction to clear the streets 18 months ago, in June 1997.

Later, the court issued a deadline, asking the government to remove all illegal structures by December 31. Later, on the government's intervention, it extended the deadline till January 15. But that is small consolation to the traders.

Chief Minister Luizinho Faleiro is now personally trying to pacify the furious traders and find an amicable solution.

The municipal authorities have been told to prepare rehabilitation plans for the displaced traders by demarcating hawking zones in the towns. But there's a problem here too: while kiosk-owners and hawkers on the streets can be relocated at other places, the authorities are not clear where to rehabilitate those hawkers who have been running their businesses in the municipal markets since the days of Portuguese rule.

Government officials admit they failed to apply their minds to create satellite markets in the growing cities like Panjim, Mapuca, Vasco, Margao and Ponda.

The issue could have serious political repercussions with the assembly election hardly 10 months away, especially since the court fully exposed the corrupt methods adopted by councillors belonging to all parties to issue licences to the traders.

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