PANAJI
Four days from today, at 9 am a solemn mass will be celebrated at Old Goa, which will formally open the much anticipated Exposition of the sacred relics of St Francis Xavier, fondly referred to by the faithful as Goyencho Saib (Lord of Goa).
Goa's Catholic church leaders and officials have been on the job for weeks to ensure all arrangements are readied to the tee, including taking the silver-glass casket which holds the relics of the sixteenth-century saint, in a solemn procession on a specially designed carriage from the Basilica to the Se Cathedral where it will be placed for veneration until the Exposition ends on January 5 next year.
However, it is the infrastructural works in and around the Church complex at Old Goa that have the authorities in a bit of a bother, what with multiple deadlines for these already overrun.
Originally, the government had set November 15 as the deadline to complete all work. However this got pushed to today (November 17) even as Revenue Secretary Sandeep Jacques, IAS, who is the Exposition's Commissioner and the Pramod Sawant government's pointsman to oversee all arrangements from the administration's side are up-to-date, has said that the work will be completed in all respects by the start date on Wednesday.
A reece is now scheduled for Monday and Jacques said it will give them a day's time to set things right if anything is found amiss during the reece.
CM heads Exposition Secretariat Committee
Sawant, as chairman, heads the top-tier committee for the event -- Exposition Secretariat Committee 2024 -- with two of his cabinet colleagues, Mauvin Godinho and Aleixo Sequeira as deputy chairpersons.
Jacques is Exposition Commissioner-I responsible for the overall coordination between all government agencies involved in the preparation work and Principal Chief Engineer (PWD) Uttam Parsekar is Exposition Commissioner-II, responsible for the infrastructure and related services.
The Secretariat committee also has two representatives of the Church -- Fr Henry Falcao who is the convenor of the Church-appointed Exposition Committee and Fr Lawrence Fernandes, of the SFX Society headquartered at Pilar.
When the Committee first met in mid-August this year, some of the specific works discussed and approved were: improving road access to the Church Complex from all available directions, setting up pilgrim centres, toilet blocks and drinking water booths, besides beautification and illumination, installing signages and a dedicated vehicle parking facilities.
Jacques says 90 per cent of this planned work has been completed and said that he expects all of it to be completed by Monday morning, at the latest.
The laying of a fresh hot-mix carpet along all the roads between and around the Basilica and the Se Cathedral has already been completed. The access roads from both the western side (from the Panaji side) as well as the eastern side (from Ponda) are expected to be spic and span by Sunday, he said.
Road via Ribandar a worry
The old road to Old Goa from Panaji via Ribandar and Sao Pedro is in horrible condition and the cause for worry among the authorities. It is where multiple projects related to Panaji's upgradation to a 'smart city' are being executed: Sewerage, underground power cabling, development of footpaths, etc.
Fortunately, the bottlenecks along, the alternate bypass road from the Merces junction to Old Goa via Chimbel and the Kadamba plateau, have been taken care of with work completed on the flyover at Chimbel.
Sawant threw open the flyover at Chimbel just a couple of days ago and this bypass Kadamba road is expected to take much of the traffic load during the Exposition.
More ferries to tap waterways
To alleviate the load on road transport, the government is exploring utilizing the waterways by introducing ferry services from Panaji to Old Goa.
According to Jacques, the Captain of Ports and the River Navigation Department are working on a plan to deploy additional ferries. Currently there are services on two ferry routes leading to Old Goa from the twin islands of Chorao and Divar. These routes also cater to people coming from villages further east to these two islands such as Narva, Mayem and Bicholim. Sources said the feasibility of adding a ferry service from Panaji is being explored.
