MARGAO
Hazard a guess on the present status of Margao Municipal Council’s multi-level parking project, the foundation stone for which was laid on September 15, 2015.
Inquiries by The Goan have revealed that it’s now four days that the Margao municipality has sent the multi-level parking project file to the Public Works Department (PWD) for a revised technical sanction (TS).
And, MMC engineers have no idea when the file will return and whether the civic body would e-tender the project. The only information the MMC engineers are in a position to provide is that the estimated cost of the parking project has now touched a whopping Rs 7.40 crore as against the original cost of Rs 5.58 crore. Last year, the original cost of the parking project had undergone a major change after the cost went up to a whopping Rs 7 crore after the GST and new Goa Scheduled Rates (GSR).
Incidentally, it would be five years on Tuesday since the foundation stone for the project was laid with much fanfare by the previous council headed by then chairperson Arthur D’Silva.
It is a sheer coincidence that the MMC will have a special meeting on Tuesday morning, but it will not discuss the delay in executing the project. It has been convened to take a call on the Sonsodo solid waste management issue.
MMC engineers in the know pointed out that the project could not be executed during the last five years, first because of the GST tangle and then the old GSR rates, factors which prevented many a contractor from taking it up.
Critics, however, have questioned the inordinate delay by the civic body to get the project executed. The civic body has come under criticism from many quarters for not taking the project to its logical end. Citizens are not ready to believe in the theory that the project got delayed because of the GST and GSR rates.
“We understand that the contractors were not ready to take up the project following the introduction of GST. But, how can the civic body and the city fathers justify the five-year delay in executing the project. It’s sad that apart from the foundation stone, which stands tall at the old fish market, behind the MMC building, one cannot find anything, except a dry waste mound,” remarked a citizen.
The inordinate delay in executing the parking project has indeed brought the present Council into sharp focus given that the state’s commercial capital is facing the burning problem of vehicular parking.
Sources say even if work on the project starts in a month or two, the facility will not be ready at least in the next two years, indicating that Madgavkars and visitors to the commercial capital will have to wait for a parking facility to take shape.
