the goan I network
MARGAO
People of South Goa will to have to wait for a couple of more months before the sub-office of the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) starts functioning in the old South Goa Collectorate building.
Housed on the second floor of the old Collectorate building on space admeasuring 5,000 square feet, the office is still under renovation, with the contractor almost on the verge of completing the furnishing works at a whopping cost of Rs 86 lakh.
It may, however, take a couple of more months before the FDA operations are finally shifted to South Goa as the FDA has proposed additional items in the office, which may cost the exchequer an additional Rs 10 lakh.
Sources in the know informed that the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) will have to float the tender to install the additional office items as per the latest FDA requisition. “It will take at least one month to float the tender and another two months before work on the office furnishing actually begin,” he said.
A visit to the FDA sub-office, which is presently under renovation, revealed that the FDA has made seating arrangements for around 31 staffers, with an exclusive cabin for the deputy director, who will head the office. The office has a small conference room and a small room which will be used to install the laboratory. The office has been provided with the compact files storage system.
Once inaugurated, sources informed that citizens of South Goa need not go to the FDA head office for administrative and other purposes, as the South Goa sub-office is supposed to meet requirements.
FDA’s sub-office for South Goa was first mooted around seven years ago by then FDA Director Salim A Veljee, who in January 13 had announced the government’s decision to set up the centre in Margao.
That time round, Veljee had announced that the sub-office will take shape within six months, a promise which is yet to become a reality till date.
Though the government had allotted space to the FDA to set up the sub-office in Margao in the old Collectorate in 2015, actual work on the project started only in 2018 when the formalin scare erupted in the wholesale fish market, throwing up demands to open the FDA sub-office in South Goa to test and ensure that the fish coming into the State from across the borders is formalin-free.
