MARGAO
Salcete-based opposition MLAs have been at their very best in the just concluded Goa Legislative Assembly. A host of issues plaguing the taluka and its people had an echo during the 18-day long Assembly session, be it the Hospicio South Goa district hospital and the controversial private medical college; pollution at the notorious Cuncolim Industrial estate; controversial new Borim bridge proposed through the khazan fields; stinking wholesale fish market; fire-prone markets in the commercial capital; inundation of river Sal flood plains by the western bypass construction et al.
Saxttikars, however, may be anxious to know whether the government has any solution to offer to these burning issues or whether the same old issues will resurface in the next Assembly session, more so when some of these issues have been pending for a long time now.
Take note, issues, including the district hospital, Cuncolim industrial pollution, stinking wholesale fish market, flooding caused by the western bypass et al had all figured in the Legislative Assembly at the previous sessions as well. Amongst the new issues that raised its head in the Assembly this time round was the khazan fields, but no concrete solution was forthcoming other than an assurance that the government would talk to the farmers.
South Goa
district hospital
Take the case of the imposing Hospicio South Goa district hospital. When the Congress government headed by Chief Minister Digambar Kamat initiated the project a decade and half ago, the objective was clear that the Hospicio should no longer be a referral hospital. That’s not all. Even Cong-turned-BJP MLA Digambar Kamat would admit that it was never the intention of his government to set up a private medical college in the imposing district hospital. The uproar over the district hospital and replies by Health Minister Vishwajit Rane goes to show that the government still seemed in a flip flop mode over the issue. This became evident when Rane admitted that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had announced in his budget speech to set up a private medical college at the district hospital, but hastened to add there is no finality to the proposal.
The Intensive Care Unit has started functioning in the district hospital, but a full-fledged Cardiac and Neurology seemed still a far cry.
Pollution at Cuncolim
Industrial Estate
Proceedings of the Goa Legislative Assembly of the current term will provide an insight into the acute pollution at the Cuncolim Industrial Estate. When the issue again took the centre stage in the Assembly, Environment Minister Alexio Sequeira was quick to assure agitated members that the hazardous zinc waste left behind in the Cuncolim IDC around two decades ago, will be transported to the hazardous waste handling site. Proceedings, however, will show that this isn’t the first time that assurances were handed out on the floor of the Assembly to cap pollution at the Cuncolim IDC, but in vain. It is still not out of place to mention that government order sanctioning Rs five crore to transport the hazardous Zinc waste is still confined to the papers.
With the new fishing season kick-starting from August 1, the fish meal and fish processing industries are expected to go into full steam. Cuncolkars, however, may wonder whether any effluent treatment plant has taken shape at the IDC to treat millions of litres of waste water from the fish meal and processing units.
Flooding caused
by Western bypass
The PWD, national highway is racing against time to complete the Benaulim stretch of the western bypass by September. When the flood plains of river Sal, right from the Benaulim to Mungul, Seraulim and Davondem were submerged under flood waters, the issue had an echo in the Assembly. In the past too, flooding along the river Sal flood plains with villagers attributing the flooding to the construction of the western bypass sans stilts, had figured in the Assembly, but in vain. While work on the balance bypass work is going on in full steam, will the government implement the comprehensive drainage plan for River Sal and the flood plains, post Assembly session is a question that may come to haunt the government at the next Assembly session.
Heritage and
old buildings
Will the debates witnessed between the Opposition and the government in the just concluded Assembly session help bring about a turnaround in the health of the heritage and dilapidated buildings, crying for government attention? Be it the heritage Margao Municipal building, South Goa Administrator of Comunidades building, or the Margao Urban Health Centre and the old Hospicio building, and not to mention the Municipal Camara de Salcete building in ruins or the crumbling ancestral house of the great Goan nationalist, Dr Francisco Luis Gomes, these Portuguese-era structures have been craving for upkeep and maintenance from the government.
