The ground, which is a venue for a parking lot for people frequenting the SGPDA market, the many government offices, multiplex and other commercial establishments, seems to offer way too little.
A recent video on social media has some Margao activists crying foul on a small part of the SGPDA ground leased out for hosting exhibitions cum sale. They allege that the entire leasing out of the ground is a “scam”. While another says that every time he makes a trip to the multiplex to watch a movie, the exhibition is the reason why he can’t get parking and hence he seems to always miss the start to his movie.
“The problem is not lack of space to park, but everyone wants to park their vehicles in the first two rows of the ground and nobody wants to park beyond that. Sometimes during peak season there will be like 300 cars parked in the first two rows of the massive ground and the approach road to the commercial side of the SGPDA complex is blocked with vehicles but most of the ground is empty. Why can’t people be willing to park on all ends of the ground, which has multiple exits,” asks Joyston Lobo, who works in the market complex as an insurance agent and frequents the ground often.
SGPDA member secretary Ashok Kumar says, “The market traders had one concern that these exhibitions eat into their profits and I believe that the MMC is looking into that aspect though, I understand their plight but think about it, we’re are trying for years to raise some revenue from this unutilised space to put pavers and level the same, so that more people are encouraged to use the ground to achieve cent percent parking.”
Kumar explains that the 19,000 sq mts area of the ground has almost 4,000 sq mts notified as commercial space, hence giving it on lease for exhibitions and eating into a small portion of the ground is fine though he admits that the actual spot given on lease for exhibitions is not the same space as that notified as commercial.
He informs us that the SGPDA file has been stuck with the govt for very long for pavers’ ad for levelling off the ground and cleaning up the space for making the entire 19,000 sq mts space available for parking.
“During the monsoon, a major portion of the ground is flooded and I feel sick to park my car. Now, that file is not moving, I felt that leasing a portion of the ground, which is underutilized is the only way to bring revenue. Being an autonomous body, we have to find means to generate funds for ourselves, he added.
Green Margao Clean Margao convenor Rajendra Talak asserted that the beautification of the periphery of the parking ground is complete and the next project will be to clean the ground comprehensively and utilise more space. He hopes that people will be willing to walk and park a little far and not just try to put their car at the edge of the ground and leave.
