MARGAO
Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai has planned a two-pronged strategy to put the stinking wholesale fish market in order as he visited the market with SGPDA and MMC officials in tow ahead of the dharna planned by a local NGO to protest against the messy conditions in the market.
The minister further issued directions to the PDA and MMC officials to forthwith stop the retail sale of fish in the wholesale fish market and to crack a whip against vendors selling fish outside the market premises.
Making his presence felt in the wholesale fish market on Saturday noon, the TCP Minister said that the PWD will immediately hot mix the wholesale fish market road by next week which will solve the problems of motorists travelling by the road.
On the stinking conditions in the market, Sardesai told the media that he has got an administrative approval for the improvement and hot-mixing of the entire wholesale fish market at an estimated cost of Rs 2.18 crore. Though the government has stopped approvals for non plan works, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was kind enough to sanction administrative approval for the project, he added.
Saying that the hot-mixing work will not solve the issue of hygiene in the market for want of an Effluent Treatment plant, Sardesai directed SGPDA Member Secretary Ashok Kumar to immediately get down to work how to commission the ETP plant inside the market.
As part of a permanent solution to the problem, the TCP Minister said that since the Union government has withdrawn the scheme for construction of the wholesale markets, he said the Goa government will devise ways and means how to solve the wholesale market issue on a permanent basis. “Since the PDA has got land in the PDA mega market, we can think of putting the land to use through the PPP model so that the money generated by the scheme can be invested in the wholesale fish market,”
he added.
Sardesai told the PDA Member Secretary as well as the MMC Chief Officer Y B Tawde that though the PDA has built a wall at the wholesale fish market, there cannot be any excuse now for not cracking a whip against illegalities in
the market.
