NESHWIN ALMEIDA
neshwin@herald-goa.com
The politicos are fighting and scrambling for space as they want every nook and cranny of Margao to have their face, their party symbol, their posed photographs and then messages across the town walls. And sadly the Margao Municipal Council is battling to lay down the law, which itself doesn’t appear to have too much of teeth
A day before a Goa Forward meeting, it erected their banners. The Aam Admi party just a few hours before the meeting scrambled for the same space showing a permission of the municipality stating that only they have permission to erect banners in Margao. Now who’s got the raw deal and who’s not?
“Basically one party had permission while the other had booked that ground and the government owned premises for the day and hence had the right to use the facility to their discretion to erect banners so it’s a conflict with no resolution,” explains Margao councilor Tito Cardozo.
Cardozo opines that the municipality needs to make a system and issue permissions with serial numbers and also state the number of banners that can be erected, the permission granted should name the location of the banners to be erected and the banner should have the license number printed for authenticity only then some resolution can be found.
But the practically of this needs to be tested. “It’s a bit confusing as to how MMC can give permission, for every tree, building, electricity pole, transformer, traffic island, notified parking space, garbage collection center, municipal open space or garden, park, to be used for erecting banners. Sometimes cemetery or chapel entrances or any other religious structure, market spaces have banners of political parties, exhibitions, commercial establishments or some event. These banners gather dust and then land in gutters and nullahs and choke them or they fly into agricultural fields or even sometimes cover the flowering plants in parks. The banners are actually a nuisance,” points out Javed Nissar, a Borda resident.
The MMC Chief Officer explains the current situation wherein there are no rules, as per the Municipalities Act, that sets the norms for banners or disallowing them. “We have authority only on MMC property and not on SGPDA land or property of Electricity Department or private property or PWD or Highway Authority property. So we need to make the norms clear and also study if Public Defacement Act could be used to act on the banners,” explains CO Y B Tavde.
Tawde also asserts that this is usually a trend which picks up before the code of conduct for the elections, since post the code coming into effect, the Election Commission removes all the banners. Tawde also said that MMC will come up with a set of rules and soon restrict the number of banners to be erected.
“During every festival we see political leaders in different photos in shirts, kurtas, headgear, different poses and angles only to waste money of vinyl flex that adds to the city’s garbage. MMC needs to take a hard stand and ban printing of vinyl banners this will save Goa from a new rising menace with the number of politicos and political parties on a steep rise,” explains Jayden Faleiro, a Fatorda resident.
