PANJIM: Three months since government demolished illegal kiosks lined outside the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and assured rehabilitation, the vendors are anguished over prolonged delay.
The meeting of St Cruz MLA Tony Fernandes and St Andre MLA Francis Silveira has also not fetched results with kiosk operators apprehensive if the legislators are serious about fulfilling promise ahead of the upcoming 2022 Assembly polls.
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“We met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on September 30, wherein we were assured that the issue will be resolved within eight days. We have been patiently following up the issue with all the concerned, however, it is disheartening to know that there is no breakthrough,” Domnick Pereira, who has been leading the delegation to CM and MLAs, said.
On October 1, the chief secretary along with principal chief engineer (PWD) and other officials inspected the site. But there has been no development so far. “There have been repeated inspections and assurances to accommodate the displaced vendors. The kiosk owners are out of job for three months. They spent Ganesh Chaturthi festival in financial crisis and it seems they will be forced to remain in the same situation even during the approaching Dussehra and Diwali festivities. They are worried about their livelihood,” Pereira said. He nevertheless expressed confidence that CM will live up to his assurance.
Sources said that PWD’s rehabilitation plan has been revised and it has been learnt that 72 kiosks are likely to be accommodated, but it awaits approval.
The affected kiosk owners, last month, threatened to launch a protest at Azad Maidan if their demand is not met without further delay.
There kiosk owners were also irked with the manner in which new stalls were recently installed amongst police presence in the area where fruit vendors were temporarily operating from. While St Cruz MLA Fernandes had said he was not taken into confidence by the collector when these stalls were installed. He however added that the revised plan addressed issues of demarcation of stalls. He added that they have asked the government to look into reducing the proposed distance between the stalls so as to create more space to accommodate all the stalls. This revised plan had to be made after five stalls were installed following a High Court order based on the petitioners submission that they had been allotted space outside GMC under the Deen Dayal Rojgar Scheme of the Goa Handicrafts Rural & Small Scale Industries Development Corporation (GHRSSIDC).
