SANTOSH NAIK
santosh@herald-goa.com
With the forthcoming Goa Assembly elections nearing, Ponda’s cup of woes seems to be never-ending. Located in the central part of Goa, Ponda, also known as Fonda, is 28 kms southeast of Panjim and 17 kms northeast of Margao. The constituency is still grappling with a host of problems be it sopo, parking, traffic congestion, lack of facilities in Sub-District Hospital including insufficient doctors etc. to name a few.
This time around, the constituency is set to witness an interesting battle. The BJP candidate is yet to be announced. The Congress too is yet to decide on an alliance and the current scenario seems to favour former Chief Minister Ravi Naik, who appears relaxed. On the other hand, MGP’s sitting MLA Lavoo Mamledar, who after having faced a lot of allegations against him mainly on the controversial sopo issue, will try his level best to retain the seat.
With the Congress and MGP having already won the Ponda seat in the past, BJP’s Lotus is yet to bloom in Ponda.
Independent candidates — Venktesh Naik and Rajesh Verenkar, who had withdrawn their nominations to support Lavoo Mamledar in the 2012 elections to help to defeat Ravi Naik, are firm on contesting the 2017 elections as Independents making the battle more interesting.
Last time, there was an anti-Congress wave. This time around, the battle seems to be different and more interesting.
Both Ravi and Lavoo are likely to face a stiff challenge from the BJP probable Sunil Desai (though his candidature has not been officially declared).
Earlier, when MGP-BJP alliance came to power, Ponda witnessed fights between the MGP MLA and BJP supporters in municipal council with both accusing each other of stalling the development works in Ponda.
This was followed by a controversy over the sopo tax hike with MLA Mamledar alleging corruption against the BJP led Ponda Municipal Council.
There were counter allegations, with the PMC accusing Mamledar of instigating the market vendors not to pay sopo due to which the issue remained unsolved.
On the other hand, PMC has failed to recover the sopo revenue for last two years from the vendors, who have cited controversy as the main reason for not paying the same.
According to Ganesh Naik, who has been working in the town, Ponda town is facing major problems such as parking, traffic congestion, lack of facilities in Sub-District Hospital including insufficient doctors and no CT scan machines to name a few. On the other hand, Ponda tops the list of the number of accidents reported in the state.
The sub-district hospital lacks facilities and accident victims and patients with heart ailments are shifted to GMC and at times patients have succumbed while on their way to GMC.
“Often pedestrians are forced to walk on the road as bikes and cars are seen parked on the footpaths. To add to these problems, the town faces a major problem of water shortage, which needs to be addressed urgently,” he adds.
Ponda constituency comprises of a municipality and Curti panchayat. However, PMC is not facing the major problem of garbage. Further, both PMC and Curti Panchayat collect door-to-door garbage and dispose the same at Kerya in Curti Khandepar Panchayat as per High Court directions but the plant lies defunct.
Kerya locals allege that PMC has dug up pits and has dumped its wet garbage in these pits. The locals have stressed the need to make this garbage plant operational to stop agitation by them complaining of stench emanating from the current disposal site.
Curti panchayat is faced with another problem of haphazard parking of trucks along the National Highway. The panchayat says it has very often raised this issue with RTO authorities but the same has not yet been solved. Thus a transport terminal in Ponda to facilitate truck parking is the need of the hour.
Former MLA Ravi Naik said, “People are fed up with U-turns of the government and they want development. Many have contacted me and have extended their support. There has been no major development work following my exit post 2012 election. Projects such as Rajiv Kala Mandir, Sub District Hospital etc. which were introduced by me, need to be attended to and improved.”
Mamledar says “I am not inactive as portrayed by the BJP in its campaign. After a lot of hurdles, some files were kept pending by local BJP workers with the government influence. I still carried out development works to the tune of Rs 1,200 crore, which include NH widening, Khandepar Bridge, renovation of Kranti Maidan and others. According to him, a traffic management plan is the need of the hour for Ponda.
