NESHWIN ALMEIDA
It’s 4.30pm and based on the grievances of Roque Noronha, a florist who resides opposite the steps leading to the Monte Chapel also known as Calcada da Nossa Senhora de Piedade, Herald team paid a visit to the site.
These historic steps were run down and broken for many years, until the then MP, Francisco Sardinha in the year 2012 after many delays finally approved the steps to be beautified and repaired at a cost of Rs 25 lakh. The work carried was intricate and the steps were redone beautifully with laterite with graffiti walls, expensive anti-skid tiles and lamp post that added to a heritage feel of these steps that connect Monte Chapel to Margao, as the step run along the Old Hospicio Hospital wing.
The steps were thrown open in an expensive fan fair and inauguration by former MP Sardinha in the year 2013 along with then Margao Municipality Chairperson Damu Deulkar. Kids, adults, senior citizens thronged to the steps to play, chat chill out and have a good time. Even heritage clubs and groups came and walked through the entire staircase of many floors and many levels.
“All that happened only initially. Later these stairs were a dark corner with no lamp fixtures and an apt location for anti-social activities like drunkards, gamblers, drug addicts and smokers. We’ve made several complaints to the cops and MMC but nobody takes action,” explains Roque.
The problem is not just the anti-socials. The anti-socials have broken the lamps and shards of glasses dangerously hang loose from the lamps. Also a tree collapsed from the Hospicio Hospital property is terribly cut and spread on the steps blocking access to the benches on the landing and thereby not allowing anybody to use the sit-outs. The steps are strewn with empty alcohol bottles, cigarettes and matchboxes. The tiles are filled with moss and slippery and very dangerous to set foot on while the fusebox of the light poles is open and sparks and is so dangerous for kids in the park.
The former municipal councilor tells us that he’s made several requests to the MMC to keep a security guard to monitor the area but the MMC seems least interested.
Margao Chief Officer Y B Tawde admits that the issue of the abysmal condition of the steps has been brought up on several occasions at the MMC meetings but nothing has really been done and the MMC needs to act fast in situations like this. The local councilor Glen Andrade refused to comment on the issue. While the Fire Fighting Department explains that their job in case of a treefall is to only clear the danger zone of the fallen tree and not to move the cut bark later, hence clearing the mess from the tree fall is not their mandate.
