Ward 04 of the Margao Municipal Council is the story of Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and has an interesting political history attached to it. Basically before the 2011 Municipal Elections, the ward councillor was Ramdas Hazare, a matka agent turned local politician with the blessings of then MLA Damu Naik. Ramdas went on to become PA to the MLA and would be known as a councillor who shunned his betting notepad for a leather satchel moving around the ward and the municipality. In 2011, political influences took over and Ramdas’ ward was changed into a ladies reserved ward. Ramdas approached his friend and got his wife to be the overnight candidate and that’s how, a shy quite home-maker, Carmina Rodrigues contested and successfully won the elections. Initially she was Ramdas’ remote controlled councillor and slowly she moved away to the Vijai-Digambar faction and enjoyed a decent run in the first two years of her tenure under Chairperson Sushila Kamat.
“In Sushila’s time Digambar declared Rs 3-crore for the council and I was excited to bring certain projects for my ward but then we councillors took time to decide if we would do one major project of Rs 3 crore or smaller projects in our wards. Ultimately nothing took shape and the fund was not released,” explains a dejected Carmina. Carmina’s only contribution is a few drains constructed and a footpath of a Rs 10 lakh tender she begged post 2012, after which she says, “The government and the DMA have done nothing and the chairpersons from Arthur D’Silva to Gonzaco Rebello have also been responsible for getting no funds to the council.”
“Carmina similar to other councillors has failed to perform. Borda has so many issues from the incomplete road widening to no proper street lamps, need for footpaths along the main road, connectivity of drains and most importantly the whole issue of garbage management and the door to door garbage collection. Funds may not be there for new projects but the councillor can at least put the garbage issue to rest,” explains senior citizen Dona Monteiro, living in the newer colonies of Marlem-Borda.
Lack of funds from BJP government has stalled development in the ward
Herald: At the fag end of your tenure what can you boast as your achievements in ward 04?
Carmina Rodrigues: To be honest except for some Rs 10 lakh worth tenders in my first two years when the previous government gave us support, I built some drains and did some road work. All the other drains and gutters infrastructure is very old and is from before 1999, taken up by the then MLA Alex Mama Cardozo. In the last three years, the BJP government has done nothing for Margao municipality and no funds have been released. I can’t be blamed for not taking up development work. Also I face delimitation difficulties.
Herald: Could you highlight a bit more on these delimitation woes?
Rodrigues: Ward 04 is very badly carved out. My ward starts at Dr Arcanjo Menezes Hospital in Comba, covers a bit of Murmutti Comba, stretches to Dr Francis Colaco Hospital, covers parts of Modsai near Pai Tiatrist House and Ravindra Bhavan, covers a bit of Borda near BM hall, covers Marlem, the approach road to Moti Dongor, stretches over the hill to Tollszanzor right down to Santosh Garage in Aquem. The ward has a radius of over four kilometres and runs along the boundaries of six other wards which makes monitoring very difficult.
Herald: So with no infrastructure projects, what have you been doing in a five year tenure?
Rodrigues: There’s a lot of maintenance to be done, bush cutting, clearing thickets, cleaning drains, following up on power cuts or maintenance of street lights, monitoring the door to door garbage collection, cleaning up sewage, small road repairs or drain repairs, decongesting nullahs, looking into damage of homes in the monsoons and I do all that to my best. I have two full time municipal labourers that are not enough to meet my needs. I spend almost Rs fifteen thousand per month from my own pocket meeting needs of labour to carry out maintenance in the wards.
