By Rajan Narayan

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week about the ongoing controversy over Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai expressing concern over the decline in the population of Catholics in Goa. For a Saturday following the week when Nandkumar Kamat observed that English is knocking out Konkani in Goa. For a Saturday following the week when it was proposed that the number of seats in the Goa Medical College be increased to 200 from the present 150. For a Saturday following the week when the judges of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court were livid over potholes coming up in on roads on Altinho which were paved only a year ago.
AND a few stray thoughts on the ongoing controversy over Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai expressing concern over the declining Catholic population in Goa. Speaking at a church function in Cochin in Kerala the governor observed that Catholics now constituted only 25% of the population in Goa. At the same time he noted that the percentage of Muslims had risen from 3% at the time of Liberation to 15% in the latest census.
Since the decennial census has not been held since 2021, there may be a further decline in the Catholic population and an increase in the Muslim population. The governor has overlooked the fact that there is also been a very significant increase in the number of Hindu migrants coming to settle in Goa. Admittedly, the decline in the population of Catholics from over 40% at the time of Liberation to 25% or less now is a matter of concern. But this is entirely because Catholics have migrated in large numbers to the UK by virtue of the entitlement of a Portuguese visa.
Though Goan Hindus born before Liberation are also entitled to a Portuguese visa enabling jobs in Europe and Ireland, Hindus have not opted for the visa in any significant number. The threat to the Goan identity is the sharp decline in reproduction rates to 1.7% which is much below the replacement rate of 2%. While Goans both Hindus and Catholics had large families in a pre-Liberation times the average size of the family in Goa has fallen to less than two children per couple.
The fact that both Hindu and Catholic Goans tend to marry late has also led to fewer children being born. However, the fall in the native Goan population is made up by the huge and continued influx of entire migrant families from neighboring and faraway states in India. This is partly because Goans are not inclined to doing blue-collar jobs in Goa. They are not willing to work on fishing trawlers or shacks on the beaches. Many are simply too well-to-do and own their own lands and family estates.
Though beach shack licenses were issued early this year they could not commence business because most of the staff or employees from Haryana and the North East have not arrived yet. Similarly, if the fishing season is delayed it is because the migrant workers from Odisha, Kerala and Karnataka have not arrived.
A number of young Goans who have passed their engineering from the IIT, the NIT, Bits Pilani and the four engineering colleges in Goa, are forced to move out to Bengaluru and Pune in search of jobs. This migration is as much a matter of concern as the migration of Catholics abroad. The bitter ground reality as Governor SP Sreedharan Pillai no doubt realizes is that there are no jobs for educated Goans in Goa.
The only job opportunities that Goans are interested in are government jobs. The government is already very bloated and there is no scope for any further employment. Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant may talk about creating jobs in the tourism section, but unfortunately tourism jobs too do not interest Goans. Perhaps the only industry which can reverse the brain drain from Goa is the IT industry. Goa could have been the ideal location for the assembling of iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 pro which are now manufactured in Tamil Nadu in India and are expected to be available worldwide from October this year.
The changing demographics will affect political equations in the state. The reality is that Hindus including Hindu migrants are the largest vote bank in Goa. Unfortunately, the two minority communities have not come together as the Muslims have not shown any interest in participating in politics in Goa. Since Liberation, there has been always one Muslim MLA and that is Shaikh Hassan from port city Vasco da Gama.
In contrast, there are as many as 12 Catholic MLAs and their numbers could go down with the drop in the number of Catholic voters over time. We already witnessed this in St Andre where consequent to the migration of Catholics from the constituency, for the first time, Revolutionary Party candidate Nilesh Borkar got elected.

ENGLISH KNOCKING OUT KONKANI
AND a few stray thoughts on the observation by Nandkumar Kamat that English is knocking out Konkani in Goa. Konkani may be spoken at home but Goans Hindu and Catholic prefer to send their children to English-medium schools. This is dramatized by the steep fall in Marathi-medium primary schools. Till a decade ago that were as many as 800 Marathi-medium primary schools, the number has come down to less than 200 though the government claim that there are still 500 Marathi-medium primary schools.
Most of the Marathi-medium primary schools are one-teacher schools with one single teacher teaching four standards of a primary school. Despite all the noise about Devnagari Konkani, there are less than a dozen Konkani-medium primary schools. Unlike as in the case of Marathi, there are virtually no Konkani-medium middle and high schools. It has been a curious part of the Goa education system that at the 5th standard level the majority of students in Marathi-medium are allowed to switch to English medium schools.
The only time in the history of Goa, when the Devanagari Konkani primary schools flourished, was when Chief Minister Shashikala Kakodkar withdrew grants to the Diocesan English-medium primary school in the 90s. The church forced the late Manohar Parrikar to restore grants to all primary schools run by the church for switching to the English medium in 2006.
This led to the accelerated collapse of the Marathi medium and indeed, even the Konkani Devanagari primary schools. With purchasing power among Goans going up children are being sent to expensive English-medium primary schools run by the Zee group and other private organizations.
Ironically, the government forces the English-medium primary schools run by the Church and other Catholic orders to admit 50 students per class in the primary section. Interestingly, even primary private schools in English run by independent Catholic trusts are allowed to charge much higher fees as they don’t get grants. The primary English-medium schools run by both Hindu and Catholic private managements admit only 20 students per class. While Don Bosco’s primary section is overcrowded with 50 students per class, the Red Rosary which does not get grants pays individual attention to the class as there are only 20 students in a class.

MEDICAL SEATS INCREASED
AND a few stray thoughts on the proposed increase in the number of seats in the Goa Medical College to 200 from the present 150. Health Minister Vishwajit Rane has announced that the national body has permitted the GMC to increase both the number of seats for MBBS and the post-graduate MD courses.
However, the main problem is the lack of adequate faculty for running the medical courses. A large number of Goans who passed out of the GMC have migrated to other states or even abroad, because so far they have not been able to get post-graduate seats in Goa. Most of them leave Goa for higher studies and do not return to Goa.
Till last year students who completed their MBBS from the GMC were required to serve a bond period of one year either in the GMC itself or the district hospitals and primary health centers. From this year the requirement to serve the GMC for one year has been withdrawn. So much so the students who benefited from the high subsidy fees in the GMC are free to set up private practices or join private hospitals.
The only exceptions are the graduates and physiotherapists who are forced to work for one year as bonded doctors on a token stipend of Rs20,000 per month. Even when it comes to stipends during internships physios are discriminated against. While MBBS returns get Rs30,000 physiotherapists get only Rs7,500 per month. Junior residents get Rs60,000 as against the Rs20,000 paid to bonded physiotherapists.
So the larger issue is if the increase in medical seats will benefit Goa. In recent years the GMC has rushed to set up a number of super-specialty departments in cardiology, nephrology, endocrinology, etcetera, but there has been no corresponding increase in staff to conduct the post-graduate courses. For example, of the two senior cardiologists Dr Guruprasad Naik has gone back to the United States, and unfortunately Dr Manjunath Dessai expired. There are no experienced cardiologists in the GMC’s cardiology department. The nephrology department is still a one-man department run by Dr Tiwari.
Similarly, the endocrinology department has only one consultant. The biggest joke is the geriatric department run by Dr Edwin Gomes. Dr Gomes himself is from the Medicine department and has no expertise in geriatrics. Despite this two students have been admitted for MD course in geriatrics. Till two decades ago most of the HODs in the GMC were from outside Goa.
Even now most of the very important departments like neurosurgery are headed by doctors from outside Goa. The major challenge is to attract highly qualified Goan doctors practicing and teaching in other parts of India and abroad to return to Goa. However, they will have to be offered much higher salaries and incentives to relocate to Goa. There are still Goan doctors who want to return to Goa to spend quality time with their aged parents.
We remember Dr Guruprasad Naik and the late Dr Manjunath Dessai of the cardiology department and Dr Ankush Desai of the endocrinologist department moving to Goa because their families including aged parents lived in Goa.

POTHOLES ON ALTINHO
AND a few stray thoughts on the judges of the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court getting livid over potholes coming up on Panaji’s Altinho roads which have been paved just a year ago. Though the HC may have shifted to Porvorim the HC judges continue to live up at Altinho. In fairness the Goa Bench of the Bombay HC has repeatedly directed the Smart City authorities and the CCP to fix the potholes which have sprouted on all roads and especially the inner roads of the capital of Goa.
The situation has been aggravated with constant re-digging once roads have already been deemed to have been done up. but none of them have been restored and the monsoons have made the situation for the public only worse. Not only in Panaji but all over Goa the newly made smart roads have not been able to withstand the fury of the Konkan monsoon rain.
What seems to be obvious is that neither Smart City authority or the CCP or the PWD have any control over the private contractors. Chronic defaulter Venkaiah Naidu who enjoys patronage at the top levels with the BJP has repeatedly been given major projects despite his poor record. The suspicion is contractors give kickbacks on huge commissions to politicians and this in turn is reflected in the quality of road works. The contractors don’t care as they know the politicians will be exposed if they take action against the contractors. There has never been as much corruption in the functioning of the PWD as there has been during the tenure of Nilesh Cabral as the PWD minister.
Though now the PWD is with Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant, he has not been effective in controlling the contractors. With local media being intimidated by the TCP minister Vishwajit Rane it has so come to pass that it is the “Hindustan Times” which exposed the massive destruction of green Goa and its hills.
In a recent report, “Hindustan Times” reported that more agricultural land has been converted in the last two years than at the last 20 years in Goa. The HT report has also highlighted the fact that there has been massive hill cutting to enable the launch of more luxury housing projects like the Rs50crore villas in Reis Magos and the high-rise complexes of the Bhutanis in Sancoale. The HT has also focused on rampant violations of Goa’s the CRZ rules. We hope Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take note.