NEWS: Goa still groping to find out size and spread of its diaspora

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Goa still groping to find out size and spread of its diaspora

By Frederick Noronha

PANAJI (Goa), Dec 28 -- Goans have been migrating overseas for
generations now, but India's smallest state still lacks statistics on how
many people of Goan origin are scattered across the globe.

"We don't even know how many non-resident (Goan) accounts are existing in
Goa. Yet in one branch at Palolem in Canacona (a remote south Goan
beach-village in an area where migration has picked up in recent decades)
there are as many as 4000 non-resident accounts," said NRI Goa Facilitation
Centre chairman Chandrakant Keni.

Keni, editor of the local Marathi newspaper 'Rashtramath', says the NRI-Goa
F.C.  is looking at the policies of other Indian states to see
what would be a suitable model for Goa to adopt for its own expats.

This facilitation centre was set up recently by Goa's BJP government,
following requests by expat groups.

Incidentally, the scattered Goan 'diaspora' has itself been clueless of its
size or potential clout back home.

Many among overseas Goan communities came a bit closer together following
Internet-based voluntary initiatives starting in the mid-nineties that
boosted global communication networking among expats from this small region
which currently covers an area of 3700 sq.km and has 1.35 million (rpt 1.35
million) residents.

Goans have been migrating since the late nineteenth century in large
numbers, with some even leaving local shores on the South Asian west coast
since the seventeenth century. 

Early Portuguese colonialism, which set up base here in 1510, meant
international connections were strong at an early point of history.
Education, but a lack of job opportunities in a stagnant colony, lead to
large-scale migration over the past couple of centuries.

Some books also talk about skilled goldsmiths landing in Portugal in the
seventeenth century, while other historians speculate that early travellers
from Goa could have reached Africa in as early a period.

Goans have found their migration mecca in places like East Africa, Burma
(now Myanmar), Karachi, Portugal, South America, many major Indian cities,
and more recently in UK, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

"Ours is just a six-month-old initiative (at listing Goans)," says Keni, as
the NRI-FC goes about trying to list Goans scattered across the globe. 

He admitted it was a difficult task, but others like Economic Development
Corporation managing director A.V.Palekar suggest that it might be easier to
reach out to the overseas diaspora via the many Goan organisations globally.

Some of these organisations also represent villages and sports club, which
have closely-knit loyalties and identities.

For the fourth year in succession, Goa is hosting an Overseas Goan
Convention on December 29. A 'social security scheme' for NRI Goans will be
unveiled. This is aimed mainly at Gulf-based Goans, whose needs caused by
sometimes insecure job conditions are vastly different from those of expats
based in North America or the UK.

This is largely a group insurance scheme, underwhich expats, their
dependents and family, would be covered for accident and family health, on
payment of a premium. It will be unveiled by Goa chief minister Manohar
Parrikar.

Goa's NRI-FC estimates that there are "anywhere between 70,000 to 100,000"
overseas people of Goan origin, though this could be an underestimate with
reports suggesting there are around 10,000 Goans in the Canadian city of
Toronto itself, and some believing that Lisbon is home to more Goans than
even the state-capital of Panaji. 

Goa's officially-named committee has declined to take a stand on the
much-debated proposal for permitting overseas Indians to have 'dual
nationality'. 

"I don't think the states have anything to do with that (proposal)," said
Keni. "Our area of work has already been well-defined." Keni pointed to the
Person of Indian Origin (PIO) scheme which rebuilds local ties while "it
does not give the expat political rights". 

>From the issues on which the state government is making promises to the
expats, it is also emerging that those overseas have concerns over their
properties back home in a Goa which passed controversial homestead tenancy
laws in the 1960s, that cut into the migrating middle-classes while larger
landlords apparently managed to side-step the same. (ENDS)


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