Representatives of the local governing bodies began to shiftloyalties, soon after the new BJP-led government was sworn in in the State.
Municipalities and panchayats saw a flurry of activity, asno trust motions were tabled against chairpersons and sarpanchas to bring in achange in guard.
But in an attempt to score political points the real civicissues are forgotten and development suffers.
Margao Municipal Council was no stranger to such politicalinstability.
“The local city fathers speak about grand plans butmiserably fail when it comes to implement them. Scrapyards and illegalconstructions are mushrooming all over the city but the council turns a blindeye,” said GSUDA vice chairman and former Fatorda MLA, Damu Naik who accusesthe municipality of being lax.
In November 2010, Sushila Naik, a loyalist of then ChiefMinister Digambar Kamat took over as the chairperson of Margao municipality.She had a vision to clear all the twenty wards of garbage and sewage under her“chak-a-chak” drive. But no sooner BJP came to power she was ousted andreplaced by Arthur D’Silva, a close aide of Urban Development, Minister FrancisD’Souza.
Pratima Coutinho, Youth Congress President was the surprisepackage who got the support of BJP for the deputy chairperson’s post.
“While the council was inefficient for the first one-yearduring my predecessor’s tenure, my tenure should be commended as we managed toclear all illegal encroachments in the city. Now, we are working to clearencroachments in Gandhi market,” said Arthur D’Silva, MMC chairperson.
“We are also working with the South Goa Collector to buildrailings on all pavements. Plans are also afoot to build a multi-storey parkingunit along with GSUDA,” the chairperson explained.
But the MMC is a divided house as it has still not been ableto come to a consensus on how to spend the Rs 3 crore grant allotted to them,as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Goa’s Liberation.
