MARGAO, JUNE 3
Where are the 10,000 municipal slabs which once covered the city drains? The Margao Municipal Council has posed this question to the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation as the GSIDC headed by Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat has embarked upon covering the existing drains with pavers in the Commercial capital.
While the GSIDC has claimed there existed only 3225 slabs at places where the Corporation took up work of constructing pavements, the Civic body has begged to differ with the claim. In fact, MMC Chief Officer in a letter to the Agency has claimed that there once existed around 10,000 slabs covering the drains, which have now been covered with pavers.
“We do not agree to the claim there were only 3000 slabs at place within phase I and 225 slabs in phase II”, MMC Chief Officer Y B Tawde has told GSIDC Consulting Engineer.
Tawde further told the GSIDC official that the agency has not taken prior NOC from the Council before commencement of works in the city.
The MMC Chief Officer further said that even de-silting of drains was not undertaken prior to providing of pavers as the agency executed works without the consent of the Council.
Saying that weep holes have been either provided at higher levels or have not been cleared, thus obstructing the flow of rain water into the drains, the MMC has warned that the Council will be compelled to recover costs fro the GSIDC in the event of any problems during the monsoons.
Incidentally, the Council has also refused to issue any blanket NOC ex-post facto on grounds that the Civic body has no knowledge of actual quantities of work executed by the agency.
