The town of Valpoi in a way was lucky.
A young and ambitious MLA presided over its destiny.Naturally broad roads, showy lamp posts and broad footpaths came up in the townin a jiffy.
Beautification of Valpoi was taken up in a big way by thelocal MLA and former Health Minister, Vishwajeet Rane. He took pains to bringin the funds for the development of Valpoi.
All this was possible because former Congress-led governmentwas in power in the State.
The former government spent almost Rs 11 crore fordevelopment of the town.
The Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation took upprojects of broadening the roads, arranging decorated lamp posts on both sidesof roads and fixing pavers for the footpaths. Different variety of floweringplants was also planted on both sides of the roads.
But five years down the line was the money spent, wellutilized? Quite a few locals feel otherwise.
Beautification was supposed to be taken up in all the tenwards of Valpoi municipality. In the name of beautification only roads in allten wards were renovated by hot-mix.
The main road leading to the city centre has sunk at manyplaces. The uneven road makes driving difficult on it. Many other internalroads are also in bad shape.
The show piece structure erected at the entrance of the cityhad a well-designed lamp within. The lamp functioned only for two months fromthe time it was installed.
There are 117 lamp posts on either side of the road startingfrom Valpoi forest training school up to the city centre. Of these only 36 lamps are in workingcondition.
The footpaths are in very bad condition at many places. Mostof the pavers have been dislodged and at some places the footpath is becomeuneven.
Many of the flowering plants on either side of the road havestarted wilting.
Although government had spent so much money to beatifyValpoi, the question comes who will maintain it.
After completing the beautification, GSIDC submitted aletter stating that the project was complete and was being handed to the ValpoiMunicipal Council. But the council refused to accept the responsibility, asaccording to them some work was still incomplete and maintenance wasn’tpossible without any financial support from the government.
At present the project is still with GSIDC.
