MARGAO
Then Housing Board Minister Manohar Azgaonkar had tried to bulldoze with the Housing board colony at Panzorconne-Cuncolim, but intervention by then Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar along with former MLA late Matanhy Saldanha had keep the housing project on hold.
Agitation against the project was intensified on August 11, 2004 when Azgaonkar came to lay the foundation stone for the project, when members of the anti-Housing Board Action Committee led by Altinho Gomes and 19 others, including then local MLA Joaquim Alemao were detained by the police for disrupting the function.
Even as the local residents had then stepped up the movement demanding scrapping of the housing board colony, sources pointed out that late Matanhy Saldanha was instrumental in convincing late Parrikar to keep the housing colony in abeyance on grounds that the colony will invite migrants into the village.
After the change in guard in the state in 2005, then Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane gave an assurance that the Congress government will not take the project forward. Later, then local MLA, Joaquim Alemao, who presided over the Urban Development portfolio, announced scrapping of the Housing Board colony. Instead, he announced that the GSUDA will take possession of the land in question to set up a football academy.
Sadly, things have come in full circle after two decades with the housing board plot allottees set to get possession of the plots with none of the public utility projects taking shape on the acquired land.
