TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Have the Margao city fathers and civic babus completely forgotten the eminent personalities, including Cardinal Valerian Gracias, whose contributions were recognised by the civic body over the decades by arranging their portraits on the walls of the august municipal hall?
Strange it may seem, but true. Portraits of these eminent personalities which found a place on the walls of the Margao municipal hall are now gathering dust as they are virtually confined in the building passage. It’s now over six months since the portraits were removed and stored in the passage to make way for painting of the walls. But, while the civic body is believed to have even cleared the payments of the painting contractor, the civic babus and the city fathers seemed to have forgotten to arrange the portraits back on the walls.
This sounds surprising given that the municipal hall had played host to many a council meeting during the last six months. When Herald contacted Margao Municipal Chairperson Dayanand Deulkar to throw light on the portraits gathering dust in the building passage, he said the portraits might have been removed during the painting work. “May be the municipal employees forgot to put up the portraits back on the wall. This must have taken place before I took over the reigns of the civic body. I will inquire into the matter and get the work done”, Deulkar said.
Deulkar’s predecessor Arthur D’Silva said the portraits were removed to get the walls painted. “We had also chalked out plans to create stands for the portraits so that they were arranged in order. I have no idea whether the Civic body have implemented the proposal”, he said.
A municipal engineer recalled that the Civic body had carried out video filming when the portraits were removed at the time of painting. “We will check up and get it rectified”, the engineer said.
