Many youngsters or even people below 50 years of age may not believe that in the good old days of Goa inland waterways of Goa were well developed. Why youngsters, even I haven't seen boats carrying passengers plying through these inland waterways, though I had heard these things from elders and always found the stories hard to believe when they said " पणजेच्यानसांवर्ड्यांहोडयेनबसुनवतालेआमीं".

 

Something hard to believe but that was a fact. The reason for my disbelief was that I had seen boats plying between Siolim and Morjim and particularly during Chavath and school holidays we used to go by these boats from Siolim to Morjim. And at times it used to take almost an hour depending upon the tide and the wind direction. And here we were told of people travelling by boat from Panjim to Sanvordem. Wonder how much time it took! But then there were other inland waterways which were active including Panjim to Volvoi and these routes find a mention in G S Amonkar's book " First Geography of Goa". Yes, we were taught about this in school but who paid attention to such things?

 

With road travel in Goa though becoming convenient but pretty dangerous with average at least one life lost every day, a thought that comes to my mind is how about reviving these inland waterway routes? At least a part of the burden on roads could be offloaded through these waterways. But then Panjim port will have to be located much upstream of where Casinos are presently located to permit smooth movement of boats. Details of active inland waterways in the good old days can be found from the article below