Initially set to be completed by 2019, the much anticipated project has been delayed till mid-2023
Photo Credits: Narayan Pissurlenkar
Around a month ago, Revenue Minister Atanasio (Babush) Monserrate chaired a meeting of various government departments and agencies in a bid to coordinate and get going the work on the ground of various projects under the ‘Smart City’ plan for the capital city which he represents.
At the end of that nearly two-hour exercise, Monserrate emerged from that meeting and spoke to the media. He sounded not very different from what Panaji as a ‘smart city’ has been over the last five years since it was conceived: a lament.
Monserrate, who has been representing Panaji as MLA since 2019 after the death of former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, was forthright and acknowledged lethargy on the part of the government departments and agencies which have been entrusted the responsibility of executing projects under the ‘Smart City’ initiative. He had only one project to speak positively about: the Panaji football mini-stadium which is currently under construction at the erstwhile ‘Parade Grounds’ in Campal.
“It will be completed by 2023,” he said of the mini-stadium but was tight-lipped on a number of other projects including the sewerage, street lighting and beautification projects in Ribandar.
As for the inertia or lack of it in the government departments and agencies, he didn’t seem combative and said, “You have to live with it and manage.”
The meeting Monserrate chaired, however, seems to have yielded some result, visible from the frenzied pace of physical work and the innumerable city roads which have been dug up turning the capital city into a war zone and the traffic chaotic.
Site visits and conversations with officials and engineers stationed there reveal that there are multiple projects being executed simultaneously in Panaji by multiple departments and agencies: The football mini-stadium, the project to augment Panaji’s existing sewerage system, smart roads, upgradation of electricity transmission network and the projects in Ribandar -- a sewerage treatment plant and network, smart street lighting and redesigned streets worth Rs 61.5 crore.
But there is no authoritative official either in the government or of IPSCL willing to come on record and offer insights into the projects or the larger blue-print of ‘Panaji: the smart city’.
Much of the work currently in progress at multiple locations along major roads and bylanes of the capital city is part of the Rs 132 crore Panaji Sewage Network Rehabilitation project, conversations with the men at work reveal.
It had tendering process was done by the Public Works Department (PWD) late last year but execution got delayed due to the State assembly elections held in February and concluded in March this year.
On the ground, work has begun at break-neck speed within days of Monserrate holding the co-ordination meeting with officials last month.
However, what exactly is being added, rectified and augmented of the decades-old sewerage network of the capital city has been kept under wraps.
The technical plans, design, engineering report, drawings and specific estimates have not been made public and access to the terms of the contract is available only to bidders and the winning contractor.
At the time the tender was floated back in 2021, Monserrate’s predecessor, both as MLA of Panaji and by virtue of it a member of the IPSCL BoD, Siddharth Kuncolienkar had tweeted his apprehensions: “Request @GovtofGoa @Goacm @Goacm@ Dr Pamod Sawant to instruct to at least plan project and not vague works.”
Kuncoliencar had also tagged then PWD Minister Dipak Pauskar to his tweet.
That was in October 2021 and the subsequent rough and tumble of the Assembly elections confined to the backburner the quest among politicians to extract details of the whopping Rs 132 crore project which is now being executed, turning Panaji into a city of pits and mounds of earth.
More than five years after its purported execution was launched, the Panaji Smart City mission and its many projects have overrun deadlines by months and miles.
Originally set for completion in 2019, this deadline was in 2020 extended to mid-2023 by the Central government citing the Covid-19 pandemic. As far as Panaji is concerned none of the ‘smart city’ projects taken up will be completed before this mid-2023 deadline.
Information gleaned from answers to queries provided in the Indian Parliament reveals that a whopping Rs 329.08 crore worth of projects allotted to Panaji Smart City are in the “work order” stage and another two projects collectively worth Rs 40.01 crore were stuck in bureaucratic red-tape at tendering stage.
Among the nearly 100-odd Indian cities picked to develop “smart cities” back in 2016, Panaji is among the few where the State government decided that the execution will not be carried out through the local body -- Corporation of the City of Panaji -- but via a special purpose vehicle which was christened Imagine Panaji Smart City Limited (IPSCL).
The fact that CCP was politically controlled by the ruling BJP’s opponent -- ironically Monserrate then -- had much to do with the decision to float IPSCL. And, the CCP and the IPSCL had been at loggerheads until October last year. The issue got resolved when the BJP-led State government exhibited a change of heart and accommodated the CCP Mayor on the IPSCL board, more than a year after Monserrate defected to the ruling side.
Now, Monserrate and his son Rohit who is the CCP mayor, both sit on the BoD of the IPSCL which is headed by Chief Secretary Puneet Kumar Goel.
Another project which is adding to the chaos and confusion in the capital city are the four stretches of roads being taken up to be developed into ‘smart roads’ at a cumulative cost of Rs 120 crore.
These road stretches include: 1) In St Inez from the Taj Vivanta (Sotree) junction to the Goa International Hotel at Tonca; 2) Bhal Bhavan to the Madhuban Complex via the Caculo Mall junction; 3) Internal stretch between Tonca junction at the end of St Inez cemetery to Madhuban Complex via the crematorium and 4) A 1.4-km stretch along the Rua de Ourem creek from the Old Patto bridge up to the 4 pillars junction past Neuginagar.
GSUDA is executing the smart roads work but progress is slow. According to CCP mayor Rohit Monserrate, the contractors faced a mammoth difficulty in mapping the underground utility cables and pipelines, which is why the work is progressing at a snail’s pace.
Water pipelines, electricity cables, optical fiber cables, gas pipelines, telephone lines criss-cross underground along Panaji’s streets and the mayor claimed that these are not mapped.
The GSUDA’s ‘smart roads’ work involves common utility ducts and work had begun in May. There is no estimate as to when this work will gain pace or whether it will be completed within the mid-2023 deadline.
North Goa Collector Mamu Hage, IAS, has authorised excavation of roads and traffic diversion for the work of over a period of two months -- from October 15 to December 15 with a number of riders to minimize inconvenience to the commuting public. However, on ground zero, compliance has taken a beating.
For instance, Hage in the notification stipulates that the contractor deploy maximum traffic marshals round the clock to guide motorists and regulate vehicular traffic. At most of these sites where work is being carried out, marshals are nowhere in sight.
The contractor is also required to install red lamps/lights for clear visibility during night time and no construction material should be dumped on the road. Both these conditions imposed by Hage are violated with impunity.
Incidentally, Hage doubles up as managing director and CEO of IPSCL and unless she steps in to ensure these and other conditions she has imposed at the time of authorizing the road excavations, there is no hope of deliverance from the chaos for the public and residents of Panaji in particular until a week before Christmas.
