TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Panjim Mayor Surendra Furtado has written to the Defence Minister and former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar, asking him to issue suitable instructions to transfer the land occupied by the Army back to the Corporation of the City of Panjim which is the “original owner of the land,” at its earliest.
Furtado said that the land in question measuring 4,969 sq mts situated next to the Panjim Police Station under PT sheet no 37 chalta nos 1 and 21 belongs to the corporation.
According to the Mayor, the state government while allotting extra land at Bambolim to the Defence forces when Pratapsingh Rane was the chief minister, had made it a pre-condition that the land occupied by the army had to be vacated and handed over to the then municipal council.
The letter to the Defence Minister says that prior to the Liberation of Goa the land in the heart of the city was in possession and ownership of the erstwhile Camara Municipal de Goa, which was converted to the Panjim Municipal Council and is now known as the Corporation of the City of Panjim.
However, after Liberation, the 2 Signal Training Centre used the land to park military vehicles there.
The letter says that the corporation had discussed this issue in its meeting held on July 31, 2013, and had passed an unanimous resolution to request the Defence Ministry to return the land to the corporation so that it can be utilized for construction of a multi-level car parking building. It offered to given the entire basement area to the military to park their vehicles.
The Mayor stated that at present the corporation is having a severe problem of parking due to the increasing number of vehicles especially as the city is a tourist attraction visited by tourists from all over the world.
