MARGAO: Six years after work on the South Goa district hospital at Margao got underway on November 4, 2008 all work on the project has come to a complete halt.
The reason is not far too seek: The contract between the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) and the contractor to build the 500 bedded five-storey hospital has been foreclosed. And, even as the GSIDC claimed that the agency is preparing fresh estimates to re-tender work on the prestigious hospital, dragging on for the last six years, local residents fear an outbreak of malaria and dengue due to water accumulation at the basement of the five storey building.
When Herald contacted GSIDC Managing Director Sanjit Rodrigues to shed light on the total stoppage of work at the hospital site, he confirmed that the contract has been foreclosed by the Corporation. “The Corporation had no option than to foreclose the contract after the nature and scope of the project underwent a change after the government decided to start a nursing or para-medical institute in the hospital building. The audit would have raised queries if the existing contractor was allowed to continue the work at revised rates. Moreover, the project was designed and conceptualised over six years ago. Rates on some of the items have gone up since then”, he said.
While saying that the GSIDC is on the job to prepare fresh estimates, Sanjit has assured the citizens of South Goa that the Corporation will re-tender the project within a fortnight from now. ‘The GSIDC has received a nod from the government to re-tender the project. My office is working to float the tender within the next 15 days”, he said.
This is the second time since the Manohar Parrikar government assumed office in March 2012 that work on the hospital project stands grounded. The project was in limbo for several months last year over the government’s indecisiveness whether to house the second medical college or a para-medical institute in the hospital building.
The emerging development is expected to cause further delay in the completion of the hospital project, but residents inhabiting the area behind the hospital project fear an outbreak of epidemic of malaria and dengue in the locality.
A resident, Joe Miranda, whose entire family was hit by malaria during the monsoon, is apprehensive of a malaria epidemic again in the area. ‘There’s water accumulation at the basement of the hospital building. Neither the contractor nor the health or Civic officials have inspected the building premises and got the water drained out”, Joe said, while demanding immediate action from the authorities.
His next door neighbour Rosy Souza echoed similar sentiments. “The locality is plagued by the mosquito and sewage menace. We cannot come out of our homes in the evening as the locality is enveloped by foul odour because of the leaking sewage chambers. Hope the government initiates action”, she said.
