MARGAO
The re-developed Margao wholesale fish market building is ready in all respects, but many an issue still remains unresolved, including setting up of a cold storage facility for traditional fishermen, full-fledged office for the Food and Drugs Administration for testing of fish, leasing and allocation of office space et al.
Incidentally, the cold storage facility forms the main component of the redeveloped wholesale fish market project, based on which the centre had allocated funds for the Goa government.
That’s not all. The cold storage facility along with the FDA building forms part of phase-I of the project, but the facilities are still to fall in place.
SGPDA Chairman, Krishna Salkar, however, said the SGPDA will implement the works mooted in the project. “May be the cold storage facility work could not take place because of the issue of alternate land to run the wholesale fish market during the construction of the building. We will take a call on the issue at the meeting with the Chief Minister”, he added.
Interestingly, while the government has put in place a modern market building for the wholesale fish market, there’s still no provision for an Effluent Treatment plant (ETP) to treat the waste water generated in the market.
Both GSIDC and SGPDA officials point to the ETP set up years ago by BITS Pilani at the market, but questions remain unanswered as to when and who will revive the project.
On the question of office spaces located on the first floor of the new market building, the SGPDA Chairman said the issue will be decided at a later stage.
