PANJIM WOES
STEPHEN DIAS DONA PAULA PANJIM CITY WOES When candidates were to be declared for, by Panaji seat (left empty by the demise of Manohar Parrikar), the BJP took time to choose between Utpal and Sidharth, the candidates who were shortlisted long back by the party. The game of merry go round ended after Sidhatth managed to get the ticket. Utpal suffered a defeat as he had hopes till the last to copy his father's grandeur and power. Although neither Manohar Parrikar, nor Utpal were originally resident in Panjim, Parrikar senior, managed to retain the city under his thumb for more than 20 years. In the bargain more contestants entered in the fray. During these years this once-- beautiful city has descended to complete chaos — 1) ROADS — narrow, dug up, badly fixed; underground HT cabling not yet comissioned for years, shoddy work , cris crossing over the water pipelines and electrical / telephones cabling and uneven digging ad infinitum; electric poles bent, loose old cable wires and weak insulators even substation/power house at Dona Paula still blocking the widening of road and at lower end the slope, an illegal footpath is further narrowing resulting heavy traffic congestion and it is further agravated with two major projects coming up in this closed vicinity. 2) SEWAGE,--- Incomplete pipelines badly alligned and unlevelled on roads -- sewage collected from five star hotels all over Goa including from casinos from Mandovi river, carried by the tankers with a mad rush through the city bad roads to be illegally sent to the the St.Inez STP plant from where it overflows into the creek and back to Mandovi river; pollution in River Mandovi is alarming, everyone is happy letting sewage dumped in Mandovi river. 3) PARKING --- the bare minimum not done — old vehicles left to rot in prime parking locations, unsuitable areas marked for parking, multiple failed attempts at pay parking, failure of the public transportation system. 4) PANJIM--- Miramar beach is dirty almost the entire stretch blocked of, for Commercial activities or useless samadhis at restricted area , CoP illegal terminal jetty under total mess; a building construction for casinos is in progress even work during nights inspite of police complaints by residents of Panjim., this issue is now in the court. 5) BUS STAND .....Patto is a nightmare, KTC buses pollution; New Mandovi bridge approach road is a disaster. 6) GARBAGE---- no systematic collection segregation and treatment, people burning garbage all over, no control by the authorities,poisoning the environment because our government can't maintain this Saligao garbage treatment plant and how they will be able to manitain more plants? 7) SMART CITY ----such a amount of tax payer money is spent for Smart City programme by GSIDC and no work development is noticeable. All these issues have been kept pending by our late Parrikar who could not devote his time in later years due to his pancreatic cancer. I wonder how his son or rather any MLA will be able to fix this city and bring it to a proper shape. This task would definitely be impossible for Utpal to manage as he is completely lacking experience at dealing with the challenges involved. Let us hope whoever is elected, whether Sidharth or Babush Monserrate, will give Panjimites a good and clean city. We will have to wait and see. Stephen Dias Dona Paula Mob: 9422443110 1st May 2019