PANAJI
The only thing he is in possession of, are the primary drawings of facades of a building on all four sides (not an approved design), which he claims could be proposed for the new building of CCP. The new building has been proposed for CCP as the present 55-year-old building is in dilapidated condition.
Interestingly, the issue of these drawings of facades came up over a small meeting of Furtado with a design engineer having his professional practice in Panaji. Following Furtado’s request, he created designs of elevation of the building on all four sides, in good faith.
Explaining the same, Furtado said, “This is not a final design. I had just asked him if he could create any designs of the facades so that we could get an idea about how we could design the new building of the CCP from the outside. I don’t know why there is such a hue and cry being created about the design.”
This initiative was purely taken by the Mayor and no other stakeholders were party to it. Formally, CCP had not written a letter or asked the design engineer to create the elevations of the building.
Nonetheless, Furtado held a presentation of these designs (which were only elevations and not the entire plan for the building) for CCP’s technical cell and a chosen few corporators a few days back.
However, one of the persons present at the presentation informed that it was not a full-proof plan of the building but merely the drawings of the elevations.
When asked about having a presentation for a chosen few, he said, “I had sent messages to all my 30 corporators, but only a few turned up. But it was mainly organised for my technical cell.”
When The Goan contacted a few corporators, four of them said they had neither received any messages nor calls from the Mayor with regard to the presentation.
“We have not received any messages from anyone. In fact, we have come to know about his plans from the newspapers. Before taking any decision or making any comment on such a huge project, he should have at least put it up before the meeting of the Corporation,” said an angry corporator.
The Mayor now wants to go ahead and present a plan before Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai, Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza, among others.
But, if there is no plan of the proposed new building project, what will he present before the Chief Minister?
“I will make a presentation of these same designs of the elevations. Let him suggest changes if he wants to,” said Furtado.
Meanwhile, Furtado has already announced that he will not evict the tenants which have their businesses running in the CCP building for the past several decades. Instead, he said, the tenants having their shops facing 18th June Road would be shifted to Atmaram Borkar Road, on a temporary basis when the construction of the building commences. But, this decision too has not been conveyed to the tenants yet.
A tenant said, “I do not know what the mayor is up to. He has not told us anything and he is taking decisions on his own. He should at least tell us when he is making remarks when we are involved.”
