MARGAO
Late at night on November 22, 2019, a JCB machine worked overtime to raze down St Xavier Chapel, which had stood on the Old Market-Margao KTC Bus Stand roadside. The structure was razed without a whimper of protest from the locals or the devotees of St Francis Xavier.
The relocation of the chapel was part of an effort to widen the Old Market Circle-Margao KTC Bus Stand road to address increasing traffic demands. Residents of Madel-Fatorda and the Managing Committee of St Francis Xavier Chapel had volunteered to shift the decades-old chapel to a new location on the opposite side of the road.
The Madel residents first approached the South Goa district authorities in 2000 with a request to move the chapel. They wanted the chapel to be relocated to the opposite side on land acquired by the government. In subsequent years, the request was renewed as the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) began acquiring land for road expansion.
The relocation of the chapel gained momentum around 2015, when the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) began the road-widening work on the Ambaji-Agalli road, and the chapel shifting was included in the scope of the project.
For reasons unknown, however, while the Ambaji-Agalli road widening was completed, the scope of the work concerning the chapel's shifting was foreclosed. However, while the road widening was completed, the chapel's relocation was not carried out as planned.
In March 2017, officials from the MMC demarcated the acquired land at Old Market to facilitate the chapel's relocation. Nearly two decades after the original demand, on November 23, 2019, the new St Francis Xavier Chapel was officially relocated and inaugurated on the opposite side of the road by Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai. “The shifting/relocation of St Francis Xavier Chapel is a classic example of development by consent," the MLA said at the time.
