For a civic body entrusted with keeping Goa’s Capital city present able, the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) has an embarrassing eye sore of its own — an ageing headquarters with peeling paint and hanging wires, standing in stark contrast to the swanky buildings surrounding it. The build ing continues to house the city’s administration even as plans to replace it have gone nowhere for nearly five years. The irony is hard to miss. While Panjim has been subjected to grand promises of transforma tion, smart infrastructure and a modern urban face, the very institution re sponsible for the city’s upkeep remains stuck in an old building that the Corporation itself has long deemed unfit for its future needs. The proposed replace ment, estimated at Rs 75 crore, has already been given not one but two foun dation stones. The firstwas laid in 2021. The pro ject was then ceremonially revived in October 2023, when Chief Minister Pra mod Sawant laid another foundation stone and the government announced that construction would be completed in about 28 months. Nearly three years af ter that second ceremony, however, the promised modern headquarters has failed to take shape.
There is no functioning new civic complex, no visible con struction momentum and, most tellingly, no clear indication of when the Corporation will finally move out of its existing premises. The latest excuse – the CCP cannot find some where else to put itself. The Corporation has been unable to secure tem porary accommodation for its staff and essential civic services while the existing structure is redeveloped. In the meantime, a por tion of the ground floor of the annex building has already been demolished, leaving the project in an absurd halfway house — the old headquarters continues to function while the replacement remains stalled. The CCP after years of planning, redesigns, foun dation ceremonies and as surances, has apparently still not been able to solve the first practical require ment for getting the project off the ground.
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The Corporation had ex plored government prem ises for a temporary shift, first seeking space in the former PWD building at Patto, now occupied by Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited, and subsequently seeking the entire ground-plus-one building on MG Road, which had earlier housed the Commercial Taxes Depart ment and, before that, the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court. Neither propos al materialised. A senior CCP official has maintained that efforts to secure temporary accom modation are progressing. He expressed confidence that the matter will be resolved soon. But after years of assurances, “soon” has become a particularly elastic word in the CCP’s vocab ulary. The proposed new complex itself has been presented as a substantial up grade: a basement and four-storey administrative building, town hall, commer cial spaces, parking for around 250 vehicles, a 600-square-metre central plaza and a clock tower overlooking 18th June Road. The government had described the Rs 75-crore project as necessary because the CCP, as Goa’s only city corporation, needed a new and expansive headquar ters. Yet the grand architectural vision has so far produced little more than grand announcements. Former CCP Mayor Surendra Furtado offers another perspective on how long this saga has been allowed to drag on. He said the present proposal bears little resemblance to the far more ambitious project conceived during his tenure. “A plan for the CCP building was designed during my tenure as Mayor, with a basement and ground plus five floors. It was supposed to have four clock towers on all four sides. All the shops were to be accommodated in the building and meetings were held with the tenants, who had agreed to vacate,” Furtado said.
That earlier proposal, he said, was estimated at around Rs 65 crore and was to be executed through the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA). “Rs 12 crore had already been allotted for the project. Then Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar was invited to the CCP conference hall, where a presentation was made to him. I informed him that the entire project would cost around Rs 65 crore. He assured us that the balance amount would be sanctioned in stages over three financial years,” Furtado recalled. Furtado alleged that political developments subsequently derailed the plan. “A conspiracy was hatched to remove me as Mayor. This building would have been one of its kind in Goa,” he claimed. “The earlier proposal was conceived as more than just a new workplace for councillors and officials. It was envisioned as a civic complex with wider public utility, including space for foreign consulates. The CCP had assured a few foreign consulates that they would be allotted office space on rent so that our students would not have to go outside Goa for their study visas,” Furtado said.
Whatever the merits of the competing political versions, the outcome is be yond dispute: years later, Panjim still has the same ageing civic headquarters and the Corporation is still looking for somewhere to move. The Capital may be promised a modern civic centre, but for now its civic ad ministration remains trapped in the old one.
