Herald usually focuses on Margao the commercial capital of Goa and its Municipal Council and the suburbs of Borda, Aquem, Fatorda and Maddel. But there’s more to the town which has been extending and actually gradually shifting into the village of Navelim. Once a quiet village of green fields, bylanes, small Portuguese architecture homes and the riverside Navelim now is an urbanized village.
Separated from Margao by the River Sal, the municipal wards of Khareband, Colmorod, Ratvaddo and Shirvoddem lead us into to Navelim. The periphery of the city had the plumbers, masons, night soil workers, potters, tile makers, blacksmiths and automobile repair workers living on the Margao side of the Railway track while across the flyover and across the River Sal was the village of Navelim.
“Navelim, being two kilometres away from Margao, became the new hotbed for construction lobby and high rise buildings with no proper planning and sewage disposal came up all over Navelim and the investments and business from Margao moved there to beat the rush, traffic and parking menace,” explains Albertine Costa, a Navelim resident.
Represented by Luizinho Faleiro as Education Minister then Churchill Alemao as PWD minister and later Avertano Furtado as Labour and Fisheries Minister, Navelim saw massive widespread development but all haphazard and with no planning.
“The electric supply is erratic, interrupted, of low voltage and residents are suffering in the day and night. Wi-Fi modems switch off, refrigerators are shut down. My aim is to try to sort this issue,” explains the newly appointed Navelim Sarpanch Vilma Medeira.
The outgoing deputy chairperson of Margao Municipaoity, Doris Texeira, who is the councillor of the MMC wards which fall in Navelim, explains that Navelim is a village that’s developed with its high rise buildings and multiple businesses but the urbanised village still doesn’t have its own garbage plant and garbage disposal
