After the fire, a few questions that need answers

The Mangrove Boardwalk at Patto, Panjim, was a signature project of the Smart City initiative. It brought a fresh aspect to Panjim’s Ourem Creek, whereby people could walk, not just along the mangroves and see them for a distance, but among them without getting into the mud or swampy ground on which mangroves thrive. They kept their feet clean, yet strolled through the mangroves. A large number of people did walk through these mangroves, and then the boardwalk was closed as it was declared unsafe, primarily due to poor maintenance, and now it has gone up in flames. Who, then, will be held responsible for the fire?

We don’t yet know the cause of the fire, and investigations could possibly be quite perfunctory as it was a project that was constructed with public money and no agency will be interested in determining the exact cause of the fire as this will result in accountability being imposed. Like in most projects where government funds are used, it will therefore be in the best interests of most agencies to quietly ignore this fire and file the report where it gathers dust and is never seen again.

That, however, will not help in determining how such fire incidents can be reduced and bring about any change in the functioning of the agencies involved. There are multiply angles that come to mind here, ranging from administrative to systemic to environmental issues.

The first that most will look for is the cause of the fire that, at the time of writing, is still under investigation. From all accounts it appears to be accidental, and so could be sheer negligence or an electrical fault, but until the investigation is complete, arson cannot be ruled out, though there doesn’t appear to be anybody who would gain from the fire.

Whatever the cause of the fire, were there fire safety measures in place? This was a smart city project, so one expects that all such measures would have been factored in during the planning, and implemented during the construction or before throwing it open. Given that the material used for the boardwalk was mainly wood, all precautions should have been taken.

Ever since the boardwalk had been declared unsafe there were fewer people frequenting it. Fewer, because though the entry points to it had been shuttered, there were gaps through which the people were able to access the boardwalk and they did so. This indicates a systemic failure and a lack of monitoring at the site, and reports on the fire do state that people were visiting the boardwalk and would hang out there.

According to the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd website, the development of a pedestrian spine and revitalisation of Patto area-Mangrove boardwalk came at the cost of Rs 5.06 crore, while the development of a walkway along the Central Library side of the creek was at a cost of Rs 2.74 crore. Both together add up to a cost of Rs 7.80 crore. This is no small amount, and there has to be accountability imposed.

The other aspect is environmental in nature. Besides the cause of the fire, it would be important to determine in what manner the fire affected the mangrove ecosystem in the Ourem Creek, specifically whether any rare species were impacted and also the possible long-term damage to the mangrove system in this creek.

When one looks at projects of public infrastructure undertaken with public funds, there is a broad pattern of poor maintenance, and closing the boardwalk due to it getting unsafe is a clear example of this. In the absence of accountability mechanisms, nobody will be held responsible for this. This fire is another reminder that Goa requires a policy change across all government agencies where departments and bureaucrats are held accountable for the works undertaken under their supervision or which are being maintained by them. 

This cannot be ignored any longer. The time for a change that brings in accountability is now.

The writer is a senior journalist, author and editor