Margao’s traffic issues in the fast lane only during election time

Come elections and the commercial capital’s burning traffic and parking issues takes center stage in the manifestos of the contesting candidates.

MARGAO

Politicians of all hues rushing with promises galore to resolve these twin issues is not new, notwithstanding that the city traffic and parking woes have only gone from bad to worse with every election.

Election 2017 is no different either. The three main candidates, former Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, his BJP challenger Sharmad Raiturkar and AAP nominee Santosh Raiturkar have all attached importance to the burning issues of traffic and parking, promising Madgavkars to get them resolved if elected to the Goa Legislative Assembly.

They have promised to build parking lots, with Kamat outsmarting his rivals by proposing multi-storey parking lot with a food court, even though successive governments, be it Congress or BJP, had miserably failed to utilize the three-open spaces for multi-storey parking.

The ring road is another case in point. It’s now over a decade since the ring road project was launched with much fanfare. Sadly, the project had hit a road block during the last five years over the rehabilitation of the displaced people. Now, both the Congress and BJP, besides AAP have all promised to complete the ring road on priority basis.

The Comba railway crossing has been the city’s traffic bottle neck over the years, but in vain. Now, the Congress candidate and his AAP counterpart have promised to build a flyover at the site.

Five-time Margao MLA, who has presided over the affairs of the city for the last 22 years, and rose to become the state’s CM for a full five-year term has unveiled a slew of projects to improve city’s traffic and parking scenario.

He has promised to take up the state of the KTC bus terminus, a project for which he had laid the foundation stone at the fag end of his stint as the State CM, but was dumped by successive BJP govts.

Kamat has proposed to put in place sky walks and hop on and hop of city buses to ease traffic congestion. While Kamat and his arch rival Sharmad Raiturkar has promised to shift city schools to the outskirts, AAP nominee has assured to get the petrol pumps out of the city “ a promise that has remained only on paper for a decade and half now.

Digambar Kamat (CONG)

State of the art KTC bus terminus

Multi-storey parking at old bus stand with food court

Shifting of schools to the outskirts

Skywalks to eliminate traffic congestion

Transportation hub on the city outskirts

Hop on Hop of city buses

Completion of western bypass and ring road

Railway over bridge at Pedda.

Sharmad Raiturkar (BJP)

Completion of abandoned Ring road

Parking plazas to decongest the city.