PANAJI
W hen India’s Smart City Mission aimed at creating 100 ‘smart cities’ was launched back in 2015, Panaji was nowhere in the picture, falling short of the size and population criteria, but hard lobbying by the then Union Defence Minister, the late Manohar Parrikar, got it included as an afterthought and in rounds of competition with other cities in the country over the next two years.
Since 2018, the selected cities had five years from their selection to complete the projects, which in Panaji’s case was to end in 2023. But in this implementation stage, marred by two years of Covid pandemic disruptions, Panaji has overshot the twice-extended deadline of March 31 and is still struggling to finish what it has taken up.
Leave alone the stories of the chaos inflicted while executing projects, the complaints about the quality of the work, and the overstepping of the March 31 deadline. What now remains to be seen is whether Panaji will stick to the original ‘smart city’ plan and execute the concretising of the nearly 1.4-kilometre stretch of road which hugs the Ourem creek, starting from the Panaji side of the Ponte de Linhares (Old Patto Bridge) and ending at the T-junction roundabout at Four Pillars, past Neuginagar.
The IPSCDL had embarked on this ‘smart road’ project back in 2021 where four stretches of roads — 1) In St Inez from the Taj Vivanta (Sotree) junction to the Goa International Hotel at Tonca; 2) Bal Bhavan to the Madhuban Complex via the Caculo Mall junction; 3) An internal stretch between Tonca junction at the western end of the St Inez Catholic cemetery to the Madhuban Complex via the crematorium; and 4) The 1.4-km stretch along the Rua de Ourem creek from the Old Patto bridge right up to the Four Pillars junction — were to be concretised into ‘smart roads’ at a total cost of Rs 120 crore.
Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) was the executing agency and tendered the project, eventually awarding the contract to Bagkiya Constructions Pvt Ltd.
The contractor first executed the Bal Bhavan to Madhuban Complex and then followed it up with the second stretch between the Taj Vivanta junction to the Goa International Hotel at Tonca-Caranzalem, where residents and commuters faced immense hardships when work was in progress. Vehicles were sinking and tilting as roads were caving in every other day, causing massive traffic logjams.
Water pipelines, electricity cables, optical fibre cables, gas pipelines, and telephone lines criss-cross underground along Panaji’s streets, and the ‘smart roads’ work involved building common utility ducts for all these cables and pipes.
Finally, it was done and dusted, and the third small stretch — from the St Inez Cemetery to Madhuban Complex — was also taken up and completed.
The fourth — Rua de Ourem — getting its ‘smart road’ avatar will now be possible only if the Goa government accepts a proposal from IPSCDL that the project be implemented under the Public Works Department, as it is unlikely that the Centre will now permit it under the Smart City Mission.
According to a top official, the State government has already accepted the IPSCDL’s proposal to execute work under the PWD and its own budget for refurbishing the confluence of the underground drains of the city at the 18th June Road and the Pandurang Pissurlekar Road.
“The Chief Minister, Pramod Sawant, has made a provision for this work in this year’s State budget, which he highlighted in his budget speech,” a top IPSCDL official said, adding that a similar proposal will be moved to the government for implementing the 1.4-kilometre ‘smart road’ project between the Old Patto Bridge and the Four Pillars junction.
Questions that remain, even if the Sawant government accepts the proposal, however, are where the funds will come from and, if they are arranged, the time-frame in which it will be executed on a stretch that is lined with two major schools — Mary Immaculate Girls High School and People’s High School.
