Incoming Margao council has daunting task at hand

MARGAO, NOV 8
Margao Municipal Chairperson Savio Coutinho has said the new Council will face a host of challenges, ranging from garbage collection and disposal, stray dogs, multi-storey parking facility et al.
As he braces up to steps down from office to pave way for the new Civic Chief on November 11, Coutinho said there are lot of expectations from the citizens on the setting up of the garbage treatment plant by Fomento, adding that this would be a  major challenge facing the new Council after two previous attempts to put a plant in place came a cropper. Secondly, he said that for the first time the Civic body would be spending from its coffers a whopping amount of Rs 7.31 crore towards the plant at Sonsodo. “This definitely call for caution on the part of the new Civic body as the citizens expectations are there for the early commissioning of the waste treatment plant”, he said.
On the stray dog menace, the MMC chairperson – who had taken over the reigns of office on November 14 two years ago – said the Civic body has a task cut out to further expand the stray dog shelter to meet the growing requirements. “The tender process towards expansion of the facility is almost ready. It is now left for the new body to take a decision on the stray dog shelter”, he added.
The multi-storey parking facility, Coutinho said, is a major issue the new body will have to grapple as a vehicular parking facility has become a need of the hour in the Commercial Capital. Incidentally, credit goes to Coutinho for the bold initiative to invite Expression of Interest from consultants to help the Civic body to set up multi-storey parking facility in the town, before the same was sabotaged by the powers that be.
“A multi-parking facility is the need of the hour. The city has open spaces near the old bus stand and the old fish market, which should be utilized to put multi-parking facility in place”, he said, adding that a parking facility would do away with vehicular parking on the congested roads. “Along with a parking  facility, the new Council will have to pursue the long-pending issue of shifting the petrol pumps from the heart of the city. Let the oil companies acquire their own land to relocate the pumps”, he added.
Another major issue that remains unresolved for the last one decade is the rehabilitation of the displaced gadda owners. “This issue has been haunting the Civic body even since the Municipality had razed down the gaddas as per the high court orders. Fortunately, the Margao Civic body has acquired land near the old market triangle for the rehabilitation of the displaced owners.  It is now left for the new Council to take a decision”, he added.
Incidentally, Coutinho said that streamlining the Civic administration will be another issue that will have to be faced by the new body. “During the last five years, we tried to introduced the bio-metric reader to check attendance, but in vain. The Civic body is faced with non-availability of the staff in office. A proper system needs to be evolved to ensure the presence of staff in the office”, he added.