MARGAO
How many months, if not years, will it take for the government to build the modern wholesale fish market with in-built cold storage facilities and a state-of-the-art fish testing laboratory?
A visit to the wholesale fish market at Margao, which is Goa’s lone wholesale fish market, shows that civil work on the multi-storied building is presently underway on one portion of the sprawling land admeasuring 10,000 square metres, while the balance portion of the land is playing host to the wholesale fish activity.
Plans to shift the wholesale fish market near Ravindra Bhavan Margao as a temporary measure to facilitate the Goa Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) to expedite work has come a cropper after the government shot down the proposal to spend over Rs one crore to prepare the makeshift market.
Left with no option, the GSIDC has decided to construct the building on one-half of the area and to start work on the balance portion after completing work on the building.
A senior GSIDC official pointed out that while work on the civil building is presently underway, the agency will be able to take up work on the balance portion only after the monsoons, indicating that the market isn’t going to be complete by the year-end. If sources are to be believed, the GSIDC is planning to complete work on the building by May next year, with an official saying the work on the cold storage and other planned infrastructure will be taken up in Phase II.
“The ideal situation would have been that the contractor was given the entire plot to start the work. But, this did not happen. Since the temporary shifting of the wholesale fish market could not materialise, we have been left to undertake the work in a piecemeal fashion. This is bound to affect the completion of the market,” the official added.
