CRAZY MAYHEM OUTSIDE GMC GATES….Nobody knows from where traffic will suddenly hit them. There is total chaos with the traffic flow urgently in need of re-organisation. The vendors too are unhappy with their new shops and none of them are occupying them but prefer to park themselves outside with their popular fare of fruits, snacks and other utility value items. Lots of kachrapati piled up everywhere including a traffic island which is an eye-sore!

Text & Pics by Tara Narayan

IT’S only when you go to the Goa Medical College & Hospital daily that you realize how treacherous the new road arrangements and flow of traffic is out here depending on the time of the day! Just off a couple of highways and with the new traffic flow it’s like a crazy pattern, with traffic coming from half-a-dozen directions and converging blindly outside/near the gates of the GMC. It’s a nightmare for both four-wheelers and two-wheelers plus the heavy traffic which routinely makes its way here mostly in the daytime but also night time.
One has to be super alert while negotiating one’s way in and out of the GMC gates to avoid a tragic fall or accident. From the looks of it there’s been little application of mind or common sense in the new traffic routing in this area which has several junctions. Plus, new structures have come up and with the additional crowding and cacophony it’s one huge mess-up. A brawling market place also hinders and gets in the way of both pedestrians or traffic moving in and out of the GMC complex on various routine business.
The present flow of traffic must be frustrating for the large numbers of hospital staff too which moves in and out, not to mention patients’ family members who come and go regularly. As it is there is a veritable sprawling out here for those seeking some item of utility and emergency value from snacks or fruit or tender coconut water, eating places…also water bottles, towels, soap, toothbrush, et al.
It is true that a whole row of shops have been constructed for the vendors with fresh snacks who crowded the gates of the GMC, but some are still here. They have not opted to squat at the arrangement of cabin-like shops built for them in the near distance – because, “customers don’t want to come into the shops. We wanted just some roofing arrangement but they built pukka shops in which we cannot sit and sell our fruit and other goods…” Clearly, this is a case of lack of consultation and a sheer waste of public money, in what is otherwise a well-meaning venture but one which has failed miserably.
Amidst the traffic flowing in from several directions there is this traffic island piled high with litter and garbage! Here the bovine population gathers come evening time when the street lighting is dim if not working. If Health Minister Vishwajit Rane is not busy with his other portfolios, will he please take a walk outside the gates of the current GMC…at ground level many things will come together with clarity, and he will realize how the new traffic flow arrangements are injurious and stressful for the aam aadmi and khaas aadmi, common public as well as the professionals moving in and out of the GMC!