the goan I network
MARGAO
If the weekend saw the PWD, NH-17 and Verna police clearing local vendors from the Nuvem-Verna bypass upon instructions from the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s office, Tuesday saw TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai stopping the drive, ensuring that the vendors will not go anywhere and will do business where they have been doing for decades.
While the vendors will not be touched anyone by the PWD or police, the bay along the Verna bypass will take shape in the next 10-15 days.
In fact, instead of driving out the vendors, the PWD will not create bays along the Verna bypass for drive-in markets so that the presence of the vendors do not create traffic bottlenecks on the road.
In fact, two days after vendors cried foul over the PWD-police crackdown on their vending activity along the Nuvem-Verna bypass following strict instructions from the Chief Minister’s office, the TCP Minister nullified the PWD-police exercise on grounds that they are all ‘Niz Goemkars’. Insisting that the local vendors cannot be thrown on the roads, Sardesai, however, asserted that the farmers’ presence should not be a cause for accidents along the bypass.
Tuesday noon saw Nuvem MLA Wilfred D’Sa taking up the issue of the Verna farmers with the TCP Minister, after they all went to the bypass for an on the spot inspection, wherein Sardesai assured the beleaguered vendors that they would continue to do business, but along the bays.
“This government will not throw anyone on the roads. If the PWD is worried of your presence in view of accidents, the PWD will create bays for you to sit and do business,” he said. The Nuvem MLA has thanked the TCP Minister for bailing out the beleaguered vendors, saying that the vendors are all local farmers who toil in the fields and sell their produce along the bypass.
