“Let us be clear. Internet service providers cannot operate in a regulatory vacuum. If they are using electricity poles, they must pay for them. If permissions are required, they must be taken. Infrastructure cannot grow through informal arrangements forever. Clear rules, fair fees and transparent processes are not anti-business. They are the foundation of sustainable growth.
At the same time, enforcement cannot be reckless. Cutting cables without coordination or notice is not regulation, it is disruption. People cannot be allowed to suffer because departments are not talking to each other.”
Internet disruptions in Goa have become a routine inconvenience, but their consequences are anything but routine. When cables are cut, screens go blank, payments fail, offices grind to a halt and citizens are pushed back into a pre-digital scramble. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant stepping in to curb indiscriminate cable cutting is therefore timely. But this episode also exposes a larger governance failure that Goa can no longer afford to ignore.
At the heart of the problem is a clash between essential infrastructure and unclear rules. Electricity poles, fibre cables, road works and permissions have been allowed to coexist in a grey zone for far too long. When enforcement finally arrived, it arrived with a blunt instrument. The result was widespread internet disruption that punished ordinary people and businesses who had no role in the administrative mess.
Let us be clear. Internet service providers cannot operate in a regulatory vacuum. If they are using electricity poles, they must pay for them. If permissions are required, they must be taken. Infrastructure cannot grow through informal arrangements forever. Clear rules, fair fees and transparent processes are not anti-business. They are the foundation of sustainable growth.
At the same time, enforcement cannot be reckless. Cutting cables without coordination or notice is not regulation, it is disruption. People cannot be allowed to suffer because departments are not talking to each other. When hospitals lose connectivity, when students cannot attend online classes, when government offices cannot function and when small businesses lose digital payments, the cost is borne by the public, not the system.
Businesses in Goa have already paid a heavy price. Hotels, restaurants, startups, freelancers and retailers now depend on stable internet as much as electricity or water. A single day of disruption can mean lost bookings, failed transactions and reputational damage. In a state that speaks of digital governance and ease of doing business, such outages send the opposite signal.
The Chief Minister’s directive to halt cable cutting without approval and to push for coordination between departments is a necessary course correction. The emphasis on advance notice and the proposal to develop underground duct infrastructure are sensible and long overdue. Digital infrastructure must be treated as critical infrastructure, not as an afterthought attached to poles.
It is also important to acknowledge that parts of the administration have been trying to bring order to the chaos. The office of Kashinath Shetye has been doing commendable work in attempting to streamline processes and engage with stakeholders. But good intent and hard work cannot substitute for a clear, enforceable policy framework. Rules must be codified, responsibilities defined and timelines fixed.
What Goa lacks is a comprehensive and transparent system. There must be a proper inventory of authorised cables, clear rights-of-way norms, standard charges for pole usage and a single-window mechanism that prevents endless back-and-forth between departments. Internet providers must know what is allowed and what is not. Departments must know where cables are and who owns them. And enforcement must be predictable, not sudden.
The current situation also raises a larger question about planning. Why is Goa still retrofitting digital infrastructure instead of planning it alongside roads, power and sewage? Underground ducting should not be a crisis response. It should have been part of long-term urban and rural planning. If the coming year is used only as a pause and not as a period of serious groundwork, this crisis will return.
Ultimately, the debate is not about cables or poles. It is about governance. It is about whether citizens and businesses are protected from the fallout of administrative confusion. Goa cannot aspire to be a modern, connected state while allowing basic connectivity to be disrupted by internal turf wars.
The Chief Minister has intervened. That is the first step. The harder task now is to ensure that clear rules are framed, fairly enforced and consistently followed. Internet providers must comply. Departments must coordinate. And above all, people must not be made collateral damage in a fight over infrastructure.
