MARGAO
A lift stuck midway and damaged taps and broken toilets greeted PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar at the imposing Matanhy Saldanha Administrative Complex housing the District Collectorate and government offices, once again bringing to the fore the poor maintenance of the building.
Indeed, the maintenance of the huge complex has come to haunt the officials as the PWD Minister, who is also a member of the Cabinet Advisory Committee (CAC), expressed his total unhappiness over the state of affairs of the government administrative building,
The PWD Minister immediately took up the matter with South Goa District Collector Anjali Sehrawat asking her to dash off a letter to the authorities concerned immediately, promising to rectify the defects within days.
A visibly agitated Dhavalikar said he found no water flowing in the washrooms and the toilets were in broken condition. “There are no taps in the toilets as well,” he told the media, after taking up the maintenance issue of the building with the District Collector.
During the discussions, the PWD Minister told the Collector to immediately write to him on the state of affairs and on the question of the PWD which has still not taken up the full maintenance of the building. “We will try and evolve a system wherein the PWD takes up the repair and maintenance work within three to four days. In the alternative, I will get permission from the GSIDC to start the repair work,” he assured the media.
When the media later asked the Collector Anjali Sehrawat to shed light on the matter, she said the PWD Minister was not very happy with certain conditions in the building.
“He was asking about the maintenance of the building. I drew the Minister’s attention to the fact that the maintenance has been handed over to the PWD, though the agency has not fully taken up the work because of various issues,” she said, adding that the Minister has assured her to put in place a mechanism for the maintenance of the building.
On the question of a lift stuck midway which angered the PWD Minister during his presence in the building, the Collector said the lifts are being maintained under the Annual Maintenance Contract. “May be one of the lifts was not functioning because of a technical fault. But the lifts are all being maintained under the AMC. They are also under the warranty period,” she added.
This is not the first time that issues concerning the maintenance of the toilets and lifts have come into sharp focus. In the past, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai had even suggested to the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to form a task force to not only look into all aspects of maintenance, but to
ensure the optimum utilization of the four lakh square feet of built-up area in the building built in a complex admeasuring around 30,375 square meters area.
