The High Court’s deadline for Smart City works in Panaji concluded on Friday, with workers and staff picking up a frantic pace as work extended late into the night. As expected, there’s a lot of unfinished work which may not be completed in the next month or two, way beyond the projections of the CEO of Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) Sanjit Rodrigues and others.
The May 31 deadline set by the High Court may be inconsequential eventually, but it has brought in some sort of urgency that was missing, and it showed in the way the Chief Minister, local MLA, IPSCDL CEO, and other officials started talking in percentages.
The claim that around 90 to 95 per cent of work has been done appears to be guesswork because at several places there are roads still dug up, open pits, pipelines laid and hot mixed roads re-opened. There is an entire road which is yet to be concretised along the mall area, the Altinho stretch is still dug up, there are open pits across various points in the city, the Mahalaxmi Temple road is still not cleared, the Bhatulem road is being dug up to lay a drainage pipe. Above all, footpaths along most of the concrete roads are yet to be laid, and several drainages await clearance. Whatever the percentage of work completed, to the eye, the Smart City has a long way to go.
The positivity with which legislators have been viewing the completion of works is appalling. Revenue Minister and Panaji MLA Atanasio Monserrate’s statement that no leniency will be shown on contractors if works turn out to be substandard is hollow in the absence of a work audit. How does the minister verify the quality of work when he has been making guest appearances? Why is Monserrate not calling for an audit?
For the sake of transparency and accountability, there has to be a third-party financial and quality audit. There is no other way to test the quality of works, and probably Ponjekars will have to wait for some years to assess works, by which time the contractor and those at the helm will be a forgotten lot.
Interestingly, Monserrate mentioned that work on the 18th June Road has been postponed, stating that it will be carried out after the monsoon, and alerted that there could be water-logging issues. The question is why was this road which is at the heart of the city and has a perennial flooding issue not considered on priority? Did the plan not factor in priority areas? Or was it “work as you deem fit?” It appears that the minister is trying to tell Ponjekars not to judge the smart city works based on flooding at 18th June Road. Is this an indirect reference that other areas where works are complete will not face inundation?
Questions have been raised right through the project about haphazard and flawed planning leading to colossal wastage of financial resources. Fingers have also been pointed at bad engineering and overlap of work allocated to various agencies. The IPSCDL CEO has put in efforts, streamlined plans and given a sense of direction to the project. However, he faces the massive challenge of living up to people’s idea of a smart city. Only time will tell if delivery will meet expectations.
