SANGUEM: The new administrative building of Sanguem Municipal Council (SMC) which was pending for quite some time was inaugurated by Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai on Thursday. Though it was planned and announced that the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will inaugurate the building premises, Parrikar could not attend the function as he had to be flown to the US for medical treatment.
Sardessai claimed the Sanguem municipality has got a decent, spacious and highly modernized building which no other municipality in the State is blessed with. The new building which is constructed at an estimated cost of around Rs 9 crore has individual cabins for the council heads and the staff and also a hall which can accommodate around 300 people. The building is equipped with lift facility and has provision for basement parking besides shops on the ground floor.
Sardessai assured all support and co-operation to the Sanguem MLA Prasad Gaonkar and urged him to move ‘forward’ with his development plans and project works.
Gaonkar claimed that the project had been a dream of former Urban Development Minister Joaquim Alemao.
It may be noted that though the building was ready, the Town and Country Planning Department was not issuing NOC due to technical reasons. However, soon after taking charge, chairperson Romualdo Fernandes managed to convince the TCP Minister to complete the project in all respects as per guidelines.
However, there are still moves by certain quarters to approach the legal forum regarding its construction. A complaint was lodged by a citizen to Sanguem Municipal Council earlier this week over the irregularities in the building construction work but to no avail.
Chairperson Romualdo Fernandes thanked the councillors and the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, Deputy Chief Minister Francis D’Souza, Minister for Agriculture Vijai Sardessai and former minister for Urban Development Joaquim Alemao and his son Yuri Alemao for their efforts in providing the Sanguem municipality with a new building equipped with modern infrastructure.
Former MLA Subhash Phal Dessai, Director of Municipal Administration R Maneka, Vice Chairperson Fouziya Shaikh, Project Director Jagdish Hosmani, Vice President GSUDA Sandip Falari and Navnath Naik, Sanjay Raikar, Caitano Martins Fernandes and Queiroz Cruz were present.
