MARGAO: With only 10 days left to put the infrastructure in place for the upcoming BRICS summit, the district administration is on its toes to complete all works. Some departments seem to be pessimistic to get the infrastructure ready for the summit.
The South Goa Collector on Wednesday held a meeting of all related departments involved in the creation of infrastructure for the summit. However, a lacklustre attitude of two major stakeholders for infrastructure creation — the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) and the Public Works Department (PWD) has now raised fears of Goa losing its face internationally due to the non-completed works.
The meeting was aimed at taking a stock of the works of road widening, shifting of poles and illumination of roads, removing blind corners of roads etc and was attended by officials from electricity, fire brigade, police, Public Works Department and others.
The Additional Collectors, who were present at the meeting, were irked over the absence of the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation officials.
While discussing the widening of the main contingency routes for the convoys of VVIPs, Public Works Department Assistant Engineer was advised to clear the coconut trees and other encroachments along the roadsides.
To this, Public Works Department AE, Armstrong said, “Who is going to face the protest and the people by attempting to remove these hurdles?”
When Additional Collector Roncon Pereira advised the law enforcement agencies to complete the task, the AE shot back saying “You don’t know the ground reality”.
However, the Collector expressed hope of completing the works in time and claimed that the work is on schedule.
The Collector also informed that some legal hurdles are stopping the agencies from executing the works and assured to find a way out.
