Margao council meet discusses garbage, traffic, parking woes

MARGAO, DEC 23
The burning issues of garbage collection, traffic and parking woes and an inept municipal administration dominated the first meeting of the newly-elected Margao Municipal Council headed by Chairperson Sushila Naik on Thursday.
Even as the city fathers highlighted the pressing issues plaguing the Commercial Capital, the Municipal Sanitary Inspector Viraj Arabekar created a flutter at the meeting when he claimed that files mooted by him have gone missing in the Civic body on several occasion, causing enough embarrassment to the Chairperson and the Chief Officer, Prasanna Acharya. This startling revelation evoked sharp reactions from the City Fathers, who demanded to know the fate of the Municipal administration and sought action to streamline the administration.
Again on the administration front, the Civic body was exposed further when Councilors said that tenders could not be issued now for want of a typist.
Saying the garbage collection system is going from bad to worse, Councilor Sadanand Naik asked Chairperson Sushila Naik to visit the wards to get first hand account of the prevailing situation. Naik also bitterly protested over the move to condemn a compacter, seeking to know why timely repairs of vehicles were not undertaken by the Civic body.
Councilor Arthur D’Silva said that perhaps for the first time in the Civic history, there is no opposition to the Chairperson, but underlined the need to tackled the burning issues head on. “We have everyone supporting the Civic body, right from the Chief Minister to the Urban Development Minister. Margao is fortunate enough to have three open spaces at the old bus stand, pick up stand and the old fish market, which should be put to multi-storey parking facility. People of Margao will not forgive us if we miss the opportunity”, he said, even as the Chairperson sought details of the three open places for parking.
The civic body also deliberated on the Konkan Railway proposal to the Civic body to levy Rs 100 per day for garbage collection as against Rs 600 levied by the Municipality. Councilor Pratima Coutinho strongly opposed KRC’s proposal saying that other bodies like the SGPDA would also ask for reduction in the garbage collection fees and demanded that the KRC pay Rs 600 per day as fees, which found favour with majority of the councillors.
The civic body also approved the charter of demands presented by the Municipal employees.
A resolution proposed by Councilor Joseph D’Silva was approved by the Council for imposing a ban on piggeries in the Civic jurisdiction as per the Municipality Act.