NESHWIN ALMEIDA
MARGAO: Spread across Rawanfond from the Railway Station area and the road leading to Navelim church to Aquem Alto and Baixo, councilor Vinay Shirodkar, alias Avinash, had a lot on his plate in the first term that has gone by. But the councillor has managed to pull through his first term with people singing his praises. He has not just managed to do well in his ward but was also smart enough to work in his new area put into delimitation in the upcoming polls, so he has a heads-up as he goes into polls and vies for a second term.
The problems for Shirodkar were galore from flooding along the low-lying two lane road leading to the Margao railway station along Nalanda colony, to sewerage issues and low pressure in water pipelines especially in old colonies and buildings.
The councillor was very pro-active in his first term and worked a lot in the area. “Firstly, he was accessible and reachable at all times, which makes a difference to his working. He was aware of our problems and needs. Even if there was a wall collapse or a tree fall at night, he would not say let’s see tomorrow morning but would rush to the spot and be there,” says Aquem resident Roberto Vaz.
Similarly Neetu Borkar explains that the councillor would also be available to her and many others in helping them get permissions and complete all paper work in the municipality or take their grievances to the Chief Officer.
The councillor seems to have identified the problems in his ward first and started by changing old water pipelines of buildings and along the road to improve water supply. Shirodkar then identified homes with no toilets or bad toilets and got them funding to build new toilets or he built the new toilets himself. Next the councilor, looking into areas in his ward where the road was low lying or potholed, rebuilt the drains, built culverts wherever required and raised the level of the road and lastly made himself available to help his residents with complaints and cases before the municipality and any other paperwork in the civic body and personally followed all this up which now makes him a favorite amongst his ward 17 residents.
“He never distinguished between Hindu, Muslim, Catholic or neither on the basis of his voters or not and worked towards all and he seemed to have a plan or vision for his ward which made the difference I feel,” says Prabhakar Karapurkar, a Aquem Alto resident.
Shirodkar has a new task cutout in the fray for the coming councilor polls as his ward has been delimited and he has lost most of the area where he worked in and a new part of Aquem and Housing Board has been added to his new ward 17.
