MARGAO
Maintaining that there’s an attempt to link him with the wholesale fish market by alleging he has stakes in the activity, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai on Saturday made an offer to the stakeholders, including the MLAs from Salcete, to take the wholesale fish market from Fatorda to their constituencies.
“Let the Salcete MLAs tell Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar by Monday when the Assembly session resumes that they want to take the market to their constituencies. Let the FDA and the Health Minister Vishwajit Rane take over and run the market. At least that should set all doubts at rest that I am not a beneficiary of the wholesale fish market,” Sardesai told the media after an inspection of the market in the presence of SGPDA Chairperson Dr Renuka Da Silva and GSIDC senior official Sandeep Chodnekar on
Saturday.
The inspection was held to give the nod to GSIDC to take up development on the land of the wholesale fish market at a cost of Rs 85 lakh.
“Some activists have said that local people do not want the wholesale fish market in Fatorda. I am not averse to this idea. The wholesale fish market has not benefited Fatorda. For the people of Madel, it has been an eyesore and a nuisance. There’s an attempt to defame me by saying we support Ibrahim because he helps us. Let us put all doubts to rest. Let the market be removed from Fatorda,” he said
He made an offer to the MLAs of Salcete or outside to take the wholesale fish market to their respective areas. “If the wholesale fish market is removed from the place, we can come with a government project which will give employment to the sons of the soil,” he said, adding that he would not have made the offer if he had stakes in the market.
The TCP Minister said the wholesale fish market has not come to Madel on invitation, but it was set up at the dead of the night by Margao MLA Digambar Kamat. “I have told Digambar as well as Churchill Alemao that I am all for removing the market from Madel if people think that I am a beneficiary,” he said.
He, however, said the GSIDC will start work on the land development at the wholesale fish market immediately, exuding confidence that the agency will complete the work before August 3 when the ban on the import of fish comes to an end.
GSIDC official Sandeep Chodnekar told the media that while the land development will be taken up immediately, the renovation of the wholesale fish market will be undertaken in phase II as per the needs of the SGPDA.
