MAPUSA
You can renovate an office, install air-conditioning, spruce up the interiors and provide visitors with comfortable seating but you cannot hide the road leading to its doorstep.
That is precisely the irony at the newly renovated Bardez sub-registrar’s office in Mapusa, where a smart, modern government office is now being let down by a roughly 300-metre approach road riddled with potholes and a roadside garbage dump.
The contrast is hard to miss.
Visitors entering the renovated office are greeted with a swanky and tastefully upgraded premises, complete with air-conditioning and improved seating arrangements. But getting there involves negotiating a battered stretch of road that offers anything but a smooth welcome.
To make matters worse, a portion of the roadside has effectively been turned into an open dumping ground. Discarded papers, cardboard boxes and other waste have accumulated along the road, turning what should have been the approach to an important government office into an eyesore.
The problem is particularly embarrassing given the nature of the office and the diverse section of people who visit it.
The sub-registrar’s office caters not only to local residents but also to people from different parts of the country who come to register property transactions and execute sale deeds. Couples also visit the office for marriage registration, while, on rare occasions, even Bollywood personalities have reportedly visited the office for marriage registration or property-related transactions.
“After waiting for years, we finally have a properly renovated office. But the moment a visitor steps out onto the approach road, the impression changes completely. The road and the garbage dump do not match the office at all,” a visitor said.
Another visitor said the road was particularly inconvenient for elderly people and those unfamiliar with the area.
“You enter such a modern office and then wonder why the approach to it has been allowed to remain in such a poor state. It is the first thing a visitor sees,” the visitor said.
Bardez Sub-Registrar Suraj Vernekar said he had already taken up the matter with the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Mapusa Municipal Council.
“I have written to the PWD requesting that the road be repaired and to the Mapusa Municipal Council to clear the garbage dump,” Vernekar said.
According to Vernekar, the PWD has assured that the road repairs would be taken up once the rains subside.
“Now that the monsoon has almost come to an end, we expect the road repair work to be taken up,” he said.
Vernekar also hoped that the municipal authorities would clear the accumulated waste and take measures to prevent people from turning the roadside into a dumping spot.
For an office that routinely receives people from across Goa and beyond, the approach road has become an unfortunate first impression – one that the newly renovated premises inside cannot quite erase.
