Selaulim dam beautification plan wading through financial crisis

Selaulim dam beautification plan wading through financial crisis
Forcing GFDC to bank on mining firms
HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, MAY 25
Selaulim dam beautification plan is wading through utter financial crisis forcing the Goa Forest Development Corporation (GFDC) to bank on mining companies to meet few requirements.
While first phase of this beautification is nearing end, Vedanta Resources Company, Sesa Goa on Monday funded Children’s Play Area near the dam.
GFDC Managing Director Richard D’Souza said that other companies like Salgaoncar has sponsored Cascading Waterfall and Dempo will be funding Cactus and Rock garden project, which is an integral part of prestigious project on ‘Development of Botonical Garden cum Eco-Recreational Park’ at dam site.
D’Souza said that of the total Rs 10 crore, which is estimated budget of the entire project, the mining firm would share just around Rs 30 lakh while rest of the expenditure needs to come from state government.
The project conceived during Manohar Parrikar regime had got initial Rs 2.7 crore and last year Digambar Kamat government fuelled this project by another Rs 1 crore.
“The project which started way back in 2003 was supposed to get completed within three years. However, the financial resource at hand, Rs 3.7 crore is insufficient to meet the expenditure of such an ambitious and massive project,” D’Souza lamented.
Now, visualising the financial capacity of the corporation to complete the project, the department has approach and appeal to the corporate sector for financial assistance by way of sponsorship.
The entire project will be taken up under three phases-parks with lawns with ornamental plants (7.9 ha), botanical garden (6.3 ha) and types of fountains and entertainment facilities (6.4 ha).
Though, the first phase of this project is almost under completion, MD feels that due to limitation of funds, much could not be achieved to complete the phase.
The first phase includes – lawns with flowering shrubs, development of nursery, Japanese garden, rock and rose garden, interactive fountains, children’s play area, palm groves and various other features.
The second phase consists of a botanical garden, which will exhibit as an exclusive platform for study of biodiversity of all species and plants found in Western Ghat and Goa.
Interestingly, the third phase will be developed on Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, as the expenditure is very high.
“The third phase will include setting up of fountains, musical fountain, under ground cabling and piped music, water screens, etc. These are very expensive items and hence we have decided to execute them under PPP mode,” D’Souza said.
Earlier, D’Souza said that the basic idea of this project is to diversify the tourist’s activities to the hinterland areas.
“At present on an average 300-400 tourists visit this dam everyday but we want more number of tourists here,” he said.
The project aims at providing employment to the local people and improving their socio economic status, along with the generation of revenue to the state government.