The Mapusa Municipal Council on Friday decided to take up work of construction of a footpath from the Mapusa court junction to the North Goa District Hospital at an estimated cost of Rs 3.92 crore.
The footpath will be constructed on both sides of the road which will be around 1.6 km-long and will entail breaking and re-construction of some compound walls along the route.
“The High Court of Bombay at Goa has directed this council to take up the work of construction of footpath from court junction to district hospital on top priority as there is heavy movement of public and school children on the said stretch,” said Shubanghi Vaigankar, Chairperson of Mapusa Municipal Council during a special council meeting.
She said an inspection of the said road stretch was carried out by her, chief officer and municipal engineer.
Local councillors, Kishori Korgoankar (ward 11) and Tarak Arolkar (ward 7) were also present for the inspection.
An NGO had filed a writ petition in the High Court on the need of constructing the footpath in the area.
Shashank Narvekar, councilor of Ward 5 slammed the Chairperson for failing to provide proper details on the agenda note circulated amongst the councillors.
“As usual the chairperson has not followed proper procedure while tabling the resolution at the special council meeting. The councilors were not provided with proper details about the length and the width of the footpath. It looked like they wanted to pass the resolution hurriedly,” Narvekar told The Goan.
“She had no answer to one of my queries during the discussion. There was no voting and no resolution was taken. There was no proposer and seconder. She just said the resolution has been passed and walked out. This is not done. The Director of Municipal Administration should ask for a report from the Chief Officer whether resolutions are passed properly in the council meetings,” he added.
He also said the cost of the work appeared to be overestimated.
“The estimated cost of Rs 3.92 crore for just 1.6 km long footpath is very high by any stretch of imagination,” he said.
Councilor of ward 20, Prakash Bhivshet also questioned the Chairperson for not furnishing proper details before the council meetings.
