PANAJI
While most sites across the capital city wore a sight of hurried closure and almost all roads opened up to traffic there were several hiccups in throwing the city open to full normalcy as the deadline for the Smart City work ended on Friday.
The most worrying case was at St Inez-Tonca, where work of a major sewerage chamber has shut the road T-junction at the Caculo Mall.
Elsewhere in the city too, at least in a dozen locations, the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) contractors have been unable to complete work fully.
Also, in a case which appears to be after-thought planning, some sections of the four-arm road junctions in the city have been excavated anew, like in the case of the General Bernard Guedes Road in the CCP Market area, reportedly because of lack of connectivity of drains alongside the Smart City's newly redesigned pavements.
Also, in at least half-a-dozen spots on the MG Road along the stretch between 'Casa International' and the Azad Maidan, the pits for sewerage chambers barricaded with wooden planks are nowhere close to completion and continue to halve the width of the road impeding traffic flow.
Some city dwellers who have borne the brunt of chaotic traffic, severe dust pollution and generally their day-to-day lives being thrown in disarray for over two years due to the never-ending 'smart city' work, meanwhile, are expressing relief that the end to these troubles is beginning to show up, if not already here.
Small traders and businessmen who run their enterprises from ground-floor shops of edifices across Central Panaji The Goan spoke to said all the work may not be complete but at least the roads have got cleared of the pits dug and the mounds of mud and debris that was strewn all over.
A restaurateur operating along the 18th June Road, who did not want to be identified out of fear of retribution from the city's political establishment, said that the work of the smart city projects in the last two-and-half-years was a disaster in terms of planning and execution.
"Why couldn't they have divided the city into zones and take up work one zone at a time? Panaji is a living city. They cared a damn for us residents and businessmen throughout these two-and-half-years," he said.
Businesses in the city have faced the worst in this period when the turnovers of most dropped drastically due to the falling foot-falls because of the smart city mess. Several businesses even shut operations in the duration.
They have now raised the demand that some financial relief be given to them by either waiving off levies, including the annual trade licence renewal fees of the CCP.
Meanwhile, a day after Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate, who represents Panaji came up with the claim that almost "90 per-cent work is completed" Utpal Parrikar on Friday sought to disprove the claim.
Descending on one of the sites where work was still going on along the stretch from Taj Vivanta junction to the PWD office at Tonca, Parrikar said that nowhere was 90 percent of the work done.
"Lot of work is remaining to be finished. This road has been shut for over two months and they cannot finish the work," Parrikar said, adding that the government should come up with a proper, well thought out date (deadline) when all the work will be truly finished.
Meanwhile, Ribandar is another area where the IPSCDL is bound to overrun the deadline as many areas in the thickly populated suburb of Panaji continue to have mud and other debris all over the roads.
