VASCO: The fair of annual Vasco Damodar Bhajani Saptah celebrations, which will begin on August 8 this year, will be a seven-day affair. Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) in its special meeting on Tuesday unanimously resolved to hold the fair only for seven days. MMC also resolved to lay stress on cleanliness and better sanitation during theSaptah celebration for which the necessary fees have also been increased from this year.
“Last year, the former council had decided to keep Saptah fair stalls for 10 days; however, we have now unanimously resolved to restrict the fair for the period of seven days only and no further extension for the stalls will be given as the main Swatantrapath lane would be left open for vehicular traffic on the eighth day. Also we have already issued directions to our staffs to ensure that except for furniture and traditional utensils stalls, other stalls should be compulsorily removed on the completion of seventh day”, said MMC Chairperson Deepak Naik.
He further informed that “as majority of council members were of the opinion that the stall vendors many times don’t maintain cleanliness in their surrounding and leave dump garbage behind, we have also decided to levy garbage fee of Rs 100 per day for food stalls and Rs 50 per day from other stalls with the assurance that their garbage would be lifted twice a day”.
Commenting on increasing the stall licence fees, he said that the “MMC will increase the stall fees and thus from Rs 650 per square meter, the rates have been increased to Rs 1500 per square meter,” he said.
this would ensure that MMC gets additional income from this year” he said.
Other issues such as taking strict action against stall owners and vendors for any encroachment on roads, giving permission for the installation of giant wheel in the municipal garden, giving some relief to furniture and traditional utensil stalls, installation of CCTV cameras on important locations/cross road junctions etc were discussed during the meeting.
