There are close to 17000 people across the 10 wards of Cuncolim Municipal Council (CMC) and the most common assessment from the people across all walks of life in this historic town is that they have not seen any progress in the last five years and as voters, they will register their protest on ballet paper during forthcoming municipal election.
Even as there maybe as many as four panels in the upcoming municipal elections, the politics at Cuncolim Municipal Council has not seen as many fireworks compared to other municipalities.
While this should speak volumes of the kind of stability at the council that has been blamed for the failure to focus on development works, Cuncolim has had only had limited development in the last four and half years while the plethora of promises have simply flattered to deceive.
Forget development, Cuncolim has failed to bring in revenue and is still struggling to pay the salaries of the employees and have also failed in collecting outstanding tax arrears from households and commercial establishments.
Incidentally, Cuncolkars had high expectations from the BJP government given that Cuncolim has its own BJP MLA and they thought that pending developments works under the tenure of former Congress urban development minister and MLA Joaquim MLA would be completed as soon as possible. However the present BJP government failed to keep up the expectations of the Cuncolkars.
Incidentally the Council had failed to push through the 19 Crore central government Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO) Scheme for the development of 55 houses in Panzorconi ward or the 2 crore sanctioned by the erstwhile Congress government as part of the golden jubilee development fund. The 1 and half crore project involving the construction of the health club has been stuck in controversy while 50 lakhs was earmarked for the Talebhat Chieftain’s memoriam monument.
It is to be noted that the MLA Rajan Naik wanted to put the foundation stone of commercial building at cuncolim market. He had plans to propose the new municipal buiding at Talebhat. But all this plans did not executed due to fights between the Council and ruling BJP.
Locals have attributed the halting of development works due to the differencesbetween the ruling BJP government and the Congress ruled council councils. Former Cuncolim municipality chairperson Devendra Dessai of three years was a Congress supporter so the BJP MLa did not show any interest in Developmental work. BJP managed to get their man on the hot seat but as he did not succumb to their demands, differences cropped up again between the BJP and the present chairperson Lendry Mascarenhas. The BJP tried to throw out Mascarenhas from his chair but did not succeeded hence the BJP government has made a Nelsons eye on Cuncolim Development.
“Council did not receive Development grant from last three and half years. I am not happy with the development pace. Administration of Council is good but support from the government is not very encouraging. Only very recently did we get a sanction letter for the commercial building project earmarked for Rs 8 crore s but the funds have not come in yet. Similarly the government has also sanctioned a jogger’s park at Maddicotto. Development in Congress regime was very exciting but BJP regime we did not get the required development funds,” said CMC chairperson Lendry Mascarenhas.
