If the Digambar Kamat-led Congress government had failed to takeany initiative regarding the ancestral house of great Goan nationalist, Dr Francis Luis Gomes, the incumbent BJP-led government has also not kept its promise of acquiring the ancestral house at Colmorod-Navelim for posterity.
Freedom fighters, elected representatives and citizens will assemble to pay homage to the great Parliamentarian at his memorial in front of the Comunidade office in the city here on Friday morning on his death anniversary.
Around two kilometres away from the city, the house of Dr Gomes still lies in ruins. If the Kamat government had utterly failed to acquire the house and convert the same into a museum, promises made by Navelim MLA and Fisheries Minister, Avertano Furtado to acquire the house has come a cropper. A year after Avertano announced that he would take the initiative to acquire the house in question, the ground reality remains unchanged.
And, Avertano now says that acquisition of the house appears a difficult proposition since the Gomes family has no ownership rights over the house.
“No doubt, I had promised to acquire the house and get it restored as a befitting memorial to the great son of Navelim. But, the ownership issue has come in the way of the acquisition. The house is in the name of a family from Margao,” he said.
When The Goan inquired with Margao Municipal Council to ascertain whether the civic body has made any progress vis-Ã -vis plans to acquire the ancestral house and restore it for future generations, civic officials informed that nothing has changed for the better and the proposal to acquire the house has failed to make any headway.
“Based on a council resolution at a meeting held way back in the year 2009, the file was sent to the Town and Country Planning department seeking NOC to set the land acquisition process in motion, but in vain,” remarked a civic official.
With the five-year tenure of the BJP-led government coming to end within the next 4-5 months, it’s now certain that plans to acquire the ancestral house is unlikely to materialise in the near future.
Incidentally, the municipality had in 2009 proposed to acquire both the ancestral house of Dr Gomes as well as the old Municipal Camara at old building, which are lying in ruins. Seven years down the line, the ambitious proposal stands confined to the records books of the Margao civic body.
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