The multi-level parking lot is yet to become a reality at the Margao old fish market site, behind the Margao Municipal building. Captured by : Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Just hazard a guess about the status of Margao Municipal Council’s ambitious Multi-Level Parking project proposed in the heart of the commercial capital behind the Municipal building.
Pose the question to officials of the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) and do not be surprised to receive a reply that the long-delayed Rs 10 crore project is finally down and out.
Reason: Despite repeated attempts to get bidders to execute the ground-plus-five-storey multi-level lot, contractors have shied away from placing bids for the project.
Given the situation, a senior GSUDA official informed 'The Goan' that the Agency would soon return the file to the Margao Municipal Council to take a call on the project. “GSUDA must have tendered the multi-level parking project at least on four occasions, but there have been no takers to execute the project. We are left with no option but to return the file to the Margao civic body. Let the Municipality take a call on how to proceed with the project,” remarked the GSUDA official.
When 'The Goan' drew the GSUDA official’s attention to news doing the rounds in the corridors of the Margao Municipal building and outside that a contractor has shown interest in setting up a hydraulic parking lot in Margao, the official said, “It is purely for the Margao civic body to decide how to proceed with the project now.”
Margao Civic Chief Damu Shirodkar was unavailable for comment on the emerging developments regarding the parking project, as he is presently out of station. Officials also feigned ignorance that GSUDA’s bids inviting contractors to execute the parking project had no takers.
Civic officials in the know conceded that an outstation company has now proposed to set up hydraulic parking in the commercial capital under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. The official, however, hastened to add that no official proposal has come from the company, adding that it is purely for the Civic body to decide on the project.
Margao is blessed with three open spaces “ the Margao Old Bus Stand, the Old Fish Market, and the Pick-up Stand “ but not one of these spaces has been developed for parking to date, despite the fact that the city has been plagued by the burning issue of vehicular parking over the years.
A nine-year mystery amid tender trouble
Call it simply a jinx or otherwise, Margao’s ambitious parking project has been hanging fire for the last nine years, since the civic body first laid the foundation stone for the multi-level parking lot on September 15, 2015.
When the foundation stone was laid for the project, the civic body was still in the process of compiling the documents to float the tender. And, when the tender was finally floated on three different occasions over nine years, the tender went begging on two occasions, while a lone contractor preferred to abandon the construction after the introduction of the GST regime.
A glance at the timeline of the multi-level parking project since the foundation stone was laid in 2015 shows that the project has hit a roadblock for a host of reasons. The first time the civic body floated the tender, around 2016, the contract was bagged by an outstation contractor, who promised to complete the project in two years. The introduction of the GST regime in July 2017, however, saw the contractor abandoning the project since the GST rates were not included in the tender.
MMC officials informed that the Margao Municipal Council floated the tender again by factoring in the GST rates, only to receive a cold shoulder from prospective contractors. According to sources, the MMC floated the tender as many as three times before finally scrapping the process for want of any takers.
In 2021, the new Council, headed by Municipal Chairperson Lyndon Pereira, resolved to hand over the parking project to the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) for execution. In this respect, the civic body even transferred the Golden Jubilee funds to GSUDA towards the cost of executing the project, but the project has come a cropper again.
In 2023, the project hit a major row after a “restaurant” mysteriously found a mention in the project design, but the proposal was dropped following an outcry from citizens.
