Exactly a decade-and-half after the Margao Municipal Council removed over a hundred gaddas (kiosks) from the town’s roadsides upon directions from the High Court, rehabilitation of the displaced gadda traders has come back to haunt the civic body and the traders alike.
For, a rehabilitation scheme worked out by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) has found favour with the municipal council, but has raised eyebrows and objections from the Gadda Traders’ Association.
That’s not all. While the civic body has approved the GSUDA scheme and is in the process of despatching its NOC to GSUDA to go ahead with the proposed rehabilitation scheme, the traders see red in the council’s hasty decision without taking the stakeholders into confidence.
In the past, the gadda traders had raised questions on whether the plan to rehabilitate 300-350 traders under one roof will generate business and help them eke out a living. The same question is again uppermost in the minds of the traders; many of them are now spread out across the town in places such as the pick-up stand, old bus stand, KTC bus stand etc.
With the Margao civic body adopting a resolution in favour of the GSUDA scheme, president of Madgaum Gadda Traders’ Association Prashant Naik has dashed off a letter to the Margao municipal Chief Officer, making it clear that any scheme worked out for the rehabilitation of the gadda traders has to be in consultation with the Gadda Traders’ Association.
“In the era where stakeholders are being consulted prior to any decision pertaining to them, we have not been taken into consideration by the authorities in this case,” Naik said, while making it amply clear to the municipal authorities that the Gadda Traders’ Association will not accept any scheme which is worked out without taking the traders into consideration.
Both the legislators representing Margao and Fatorda constituencies have rallied behind the gadda traders and have opposed the council’s decision. Says Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, “For whom is the rehabilitation scheme, if it is not accepted by the gadda traders? The civic body should do a re-think.”
Kamat’s Fatorda counterpart, Vijai Sardesai said the civic body ought to have not only consulted the gadda traders, but taken all the stakeholders into confidence before taking any decision. “Both the municipality and the government literally slept for 15 long years and now want to implement a scheme without taking the gadda traders into confidence. It’s surprising that neither the civic body nor GSUDA had an interaction with the gadda traders,” Sardesai asserted.
