TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: As the controversy over the Cuncolim Chieftains’ memorial park beautification project deepened with the contractor attributing the delay for want of architectural drawings, the Cuncolim Municipal Council has convened a meeting on Thursday with the architect and contractor to ascertain the status of the project.
The CMC meeting assumes significance and comes against the backdrop of letters written by both the architect and the contractor over the failure of the Civic body to make the payments and to provide the architectural drawings to complete the remaining work. CMC Chairperson Devendra Desai conceded on Wednesday that though the architect had written letters to the Civic body to clear his payment, there was delay on the part of the Council to pay the pending bills. This delay, sources said, further caused the delay in the architect handing over the architectural drawings to the contractor, further delaying the completion of the project. “I have convened a meeting of the architect and the contractor to solve the problem and dues. Things are expected to move forward after the meeting,” he added.
The contractor handling the beautification had on March 21 written to the CMC chief officer that he had not received any architectural drawings, thus putting spokes in the plan to complete the project in time. “How can I complete the project when the Civic body has not given me the architectural drawings?” the contractor asked, saying that the balance work of the project will be taken up as soon as the Civic body hands over the architectural drawings.
The Cuncolim Chieftains’ beautification was taken up way back in 2012 at an estimated cost of Rs 55 lakh under the Golden Jubilee signature project, but work on the project has been dragging on since then.
