CIVIC CRAWL: Work has resumed on the long-delayed administrative building of the Mapusa Municipal Council, but progress remains excruciatingly slow, with authorities yet to specify a completion deadline.
MAPUSA
In the heart of bustling Mapusa, where traders haggle, commuters jostle and residents queue up daily for civic services, time appears to have stood still behind the walls of the Mapusa Municipal Council.
What was envisioned as a solution to chronic space constraints has instead become a symbol of drifting deadlines and diffused accountability.
The Rs2.97-crore administrative building project of the Mapusa Municipal Council, which began in December 2021 with a one-year completion target, remains unfinished more than four years later.
Though work has resumed after long periods of silence, the pace is painfully slow – raising uncomfortable questions about leadership, monitoring and contractual enforcement.
Project that outlived
its deadline
Originally approved in 2017, the new structure was meant to bring order and breathing space to a civic body bursting at its seams. The plan included basement parking, commercial units, a canteen on the first floor, and a spacious hall on the second floor for council meetings.
Instead, what stands today is a partially completed structure – its upper floor reportedly done, but interior works crawling forward without any publicly stated deadline for completion.
For nearly a year, the site lay abandoned. Construction activity had halted entirely, leaving behind exposed concrete, steel and unanswered questions.
The building, located directly behind the existing municipal office, sits in an area accessed daily by staff and members of the public. The stagnation not only embarrassed the administration but also raised safety concerns.
Files in corridors, meetings
in cramped halls
Inside the existing municipal building, the story is one of congestion and compromise. Files spill into corridors. Documents are stacked on window sills. The municipal hall – too small for comfortable deliberations – reflects the administrative suffocation that the new building was meant to end.
Staff members quietly admit that the lack of space affects efficiency. Citizens endure longer waits in overcrowded sections. The promise of modernization remains, quite literally, under construction.
Leadership without
deadlines
Sources indicate that contractor Shivam Infratech failed to adhere to timelines despite repeated assurances. Yet, beyond acknowledging the slow pace, the civic leadership has stopped short of committing to a fresh completion deadline.
Chairperson Priya Mishal has confirmed that work has resumed after a prolonged gap but conceded that progress remains slow. Plastering and finishing works are expected to follow, but no timeline has been publicly fixed.
And therein lies the larger concern.
When public projects exceed deadlines by years without consequences, the issue transcends construction delays. It becomes a question of governance. Who monitors progress? Were penalties invoked? Was the contract reviewed? What explains the prolonged dormancy of a ₹2.97-crore public asset?
Administrative drift
In Mapusa’s case, the building has become more than a delayed infrastructure project. It stands as a physical metaphor for bureaucratic inertia.
While the contractor now appears to have restarted work, the absence of a firm completion schedule suggests that the civic body continues to operate reactively rather than decisively.
For residents of Mapusa, the question is no longer when the building will be completed – but whether the leadership will demonstrate the resolve to enforce timelines and restore faith in public project management.
