TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: The Government has begun demolishing the old Institute of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour building which currently houses several government offices including the Directorate of Food and Drugs Administration, the Traffic Police Cell and a section of commercial taxes department and other offices.
The heavy machinery used to demolish the building has left the offices of the FDA including those of senior officers like food and pharmacy inspectors covered with dust forcing them to cover their faces with improvised masks in a bid to save themselves from breathing the dust. The noise from the demolition work is deafening.
Speaking to Herald, at the site of the demolition, a food inspector told Herald that their life at work has become unbearable.
“It goes on from morning to evening. The entire office is covered with dust and the noise is constant,” the food inspector told Herald requesting anonymity.
The contractor appointed to bring down the buildings has already dismantled two buildings and has completely brought down a third already while the rubble is being shifted using an excavator right where the officials and staff are working. According to those present there, the buildings are giving way for a huge government complex that will house many offices in the future.
The government has been planning to bring up a huge complex at the site with another site work already being undertaken by the GSIDC for the construction of an office building for the Information Technology Department. The project is being undertaken by Venkata Rao Infra Projects Pvt Ltd. and is expected to be completed by December 2014.
The inspector said that the FDA office was to be shifted before the demolition work started but their new office building at Bambolim is not ready yet, as such they will have to continue to work at the office located next to the construction site.
A visitor to the site Felix Dias, lambasted the contractor for the amount of dust he was generating even as government office staff have to work barely meters away.
“The work generates much dust. They should at least sprinkle water on the track of the excavator so that when it moves it does not generate so much dust. Further the workers here have no safety equipment such as helmets, lifelines, construction boots and the like,” Dias who visited the FDA office for his work said.
“The work should stop until these measures are in place,” he opined.
