the goan I network
PANAJI
The 30 councillors of the Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) led by mayor Vitthal Chopdekar on Saturday threatened to go on a hunger strike outside the CCP office in the city, if the commissioner did not see to it that roads in the city were repaired within 48 hours, ending on the afternoon of September 3.
The mayor and the councillors expressed their anger and frustration over not being taken into confidence by CCP commissioner Ajit Roy when it came to important decisions. More specifically, councillors were upset by the horrible and unspeakable condition of the roads in the city, and said that people were consistently asking them why nothing was being done.
“We had approached the commissioner in May about the potholes and a tender was supposed to be floated. Till today, nothing is being done. A move was made in this direction only on Friday,” informed Mayor Chopdekar.
Claiming that he was being sidelined and that all files went directly to the commissioner, Mayor Chopdekar insisted that Roy was lax as he was an “outsider”, and as such wasn’t in tune with the problems faced by the locals in the city.
“CM Parrikar had promised us that with an IAS officer as commissioner, all the city’s problems would be solved. But things are going from bad to worse,” expressed the mayor while regretting not being able to approach the CM about the problem due to his absence in the state. “We demand that the commissioner be removed and a local commissioner brought in,” he stated.
The CCP, in the absence of the CM approached GSIDC chairman Sidharth Kuncalienkar with their apprehensions, but Kuncalienkar dismissed them stating that Rs 11,000 crores had already been allocated to the body, which should have been using the funds for repairing roads. However, the mayor insisted that 80% of these funds were going for door to door garbage collection and salary of staff.
The CCP also slammed the GSIDC and smart city body IPSCDL for not taking up development projects that actually affected Panjimites. “If the GSIDC has not done its work, why is the CCP being blamed,” demanded a councillor adding that if Panjim had come 90th on the ease of living index, it was because roads and drains were not maintained.
“It’s not that there is no funding. People taking up the projects are not interested in basic necessities,” alleged one of the councillors. “Rs 1.5 cr was wasted on CCTV cameras for the city when basic necessities are not taken care of,” he said angrily.
