Goa CM Pramod Sawant stops convoy, attends injured woman on highway

In what may be called an attitude of a good samaritan, Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday stopped his convoy to provide help to a woman tourist who had met with an accident. The incident took place at Zuari Bridge,10 kilometres away from Goa's capital Panaji. He first helped in by first examining her and then taking her to the nearest hospital in one of his escort vehicles. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media later.

The video showed Sawant, an Ayurveda doctor, getting down from his car and attending to the woman who had fallen off a two-wheeler. The woman was later taken to Goa Medical College and Hospital in Bambolim, some 6 kilometres from the spot. As per reports, on his way back from the Dabolim international airport, after returning from an official visit to the national capital where he met several BJP leaders as well as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, he stopped the convoy at the Zuari bridge. He inquired about the woman who was knocked down in a hit and run case. "The Chief Minister also enquired whether the injured lady had noted down the number of the vehicle which had collided with a two-wheeler," an official attached to the Chief Minister's Office said.

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Here is the video:

Goa Chief Minister on Open Defecation Free

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that he did not previously declare Goa open defecation free (ODF) since he wanted to avoid embarrassment by not actually having the state free of defecation. On August 30, Goa officially joined the ranks of Open Defecation Free states after directorate of panchayats and directorate of municipal administration declared rural and urban areas in the state open defecation free. Sawant said that Goa wanted to be responsible and ensure that the state was actually defecation free and was more focussed on implementing the scheme rather than rushing through to be declared as open defecation free. He told the reporters that in big states, villages had been declared ODF even if they housed just one toilet. 

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