Team Herald
MARGAO: Residents of Ambaulim strongly castigated contractor Narayan Sukhtankar for depriving them their only play ground and demanded that the government cancel the contract awarded to him and re-tender the work of developing the play ground at Copelbhat Deao.
Briefing media persons John Fernandes from Ambaulim pointed out that following their efforts the government in 2016 tendered the work of developing the playground at Copelbhat and accordingly the work order was issued to Narayan Sukhtankar for Rs 1.11 crore on March 5, 2018.
He said that the contractor dumped mud on the existing playground in May 2018 and subsequently abandoned the work. “The youth from the village are without any place to play since October 2018 as the playground cannot be used for any sports now,” he said.
Pointing out that the ground was being developed with funds from the Tribal Welfare Department, he said, it was not correct to waste the funds and added that the Tribal Minister Govind Gawade has said that funds are not a problem.
Further pointing out that as per the work order, the work was to be completed by March 15, 2019, he said in reply to an application under Right to Information Act, it was stated that only 10 per cent of the work is completed.
“If only 10 per cent of the work is done instead of waiting further, the government should cancel the tender and allot the work to some other contractor so that the local youth can get a playground as soon as possible,” he said.
