ASSAGAO: The Mapusa-based office of the Administracao das Comunidades de Bardez, which controls all the Comunidades in the North Goa district, is in an extremely sorry condition. Portions of the Portuguese-era building have weakened with time, chunks of plaster have fallen off, and plants have begun growing out of the structure too, putting the walls at risk of eventually splitting apart.
So decrepit is its condition that the outgoing administrator, Shivprasad Naik, said he felt extremely uncomfortable working there as, “the building is as good as a dungeon”. Naik, who is now a deputy collector after have served for 15 months as administrator of the north zone comunidade, further said, “I really don’t know how earlier officers functioned there, but during my term, I worked to get three-phase power supply for the office, internet, a photocopy machine, some computers, air conditioners, comfortable chairs. I made sure that the office was renovated and made people-friendly using only comunidade funds.”
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Goa’s Comunidades are institutions by themselves, which means that the government cannot pump in funds for their maintenance. Such funds need to be generated from within the Comunidade concerned itself. And while the staff working in the north zone office at Mapusa draw their salaries from the ‘derhama’ paid by the various Comunidades, the administrator is the only worker who gets paid by the state as he/she is a government servant. The state revenue department controls the Comunidades only from the administrative point of view.
Sources in the office at Mapusa said that when a proposal to renovate the building at an estimated cost of Rs 70 lakh was sent to the revenue department, no progress was made as there is no budgetary head for such a project.
“The Mapusa office is housed in a heritage building that is crying out for conservation and restoration. Only if the Comunidades come together and take up the work will this building survive. Else it will be a victim of the vagaries of nature,” Naik said.
