the goan I network
MAPUSA
Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday admitted that government alone will not be able to make Goa garbage free but needed support of all panchayat members and more importantly the public.
“We will be able to make Goa garbage free only if we get the cooperation of local panch members and the general public,” Parrikar said.
The CM was speaking at a function after inaugurating the first public utilities and changing room facility at Candolim beach in the presence of Tourism Minister, Manohar Babu Ajgaonkar , GTDC Chairman, Nilesh Cabral, local MLA, Michael Lobo and others. The project was constructed by Goa Tourism Development Corporation.
Speaking further, he said, however much a government may spend on various public oriented projects if people did not support the venture it was fruitless.
He said the government had received Rs 200 crore from the Centre for the development of the coastal circuit in the State.
“I am ready to bring more money for development but we need the support of the panch members and the people of Goa to carry on the good work,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that it was an irony that in a developed Goa over 70,000 people has to go to the forest in the absence of toilets.
Tourism Minister, Manohar Babu Ajgaonkar said that if the State needed more tourist footfalls then there was need to offer better facilities to them.
“We will work hard to provide better facilities to tourists. We need good tourists coming to Goa not those engaged in drug trade,” he said.
He said the facility of toilets, changing room and locker system provided in Candolim was the state of the art kind. “Our aim is to make Goa the number one state in the country and we need the cooperation of the people to achieve this,” Ajgaonkar said.
GTDC Chairman, Nilesh Cabral said that keeping tourism in mind, the government will spend around Rs 15 crores to build public utility facilities along the entire Candolim-Calangute-Baga coast.
“Many attempts were made to stop the work on the toilet and changing block at Candolim. But the local MLA and the panchayat stood firm and we have one of the finest public utility projects on this beach,” Cabral said.
GTDC MD Nikhil Dessai, Candolim Sarpanch Blaize Fernandes, Parra Sarpanch, Delilah Lobo and others were present on the occasion.
