Saxtikars hope Sawant govt will fulfill Parrikar’s promises

Margao: After his much-hyped Mission Salcete helped BJP undermine Congress in its citadel in the 2012 polls, Manohar Parrikar had promised a slew of measures for Salcete with a view to thrashing out solutions for vexed problems. If after his elevation to raksha mantri his successor Laxmikant Parsekar failed to engage with Salcete, post Parrikar’s death in 2019, Salcete ranked the lowest in the scheme of things of his other successor, Pramod Sawant, too.
However, with BJP winning the Navelim seat, scoring a victory in Salcete for the first time ever, Saxtikars are hopeful that Pramod Sawant 2.0 government will devote some attention to put in motion some of Parrikar’s unfulfilled promises for Salcete.
Soon after taking over as CM, Parrikar had, in March 2012, held deliberations over the traffic problems in Margao with senior police officials over short- and long-term measures. Several structural changes in the traffic plan of the city were suggested. “Without putting in place some structural changes, it may not be possible to streamline the traffic,” Parrikar had said. Construction of a foot-overbridge and subways at some places in the city were also discussed as long-term measures.
Days later, while conducting an inspection of the pollution levels of the Sal at Khareband, Parrikar had expressed his disgust over the high pollution levels of the river that is considered to be Salcete’s lifeline. “This is worse than the St Inez nullah. The St Inez nullah is much cleaner. The sewerage water is discharged into the river, which stinks, smells and its colour is something that you can’t even imagine. We need to start the River Sal clean-up mission. For that we will have to cut off the source of pollution,” Parrikar had said. While he did manage to get central funds for dredging the Sal soon thereafter, following which a part of the river has also been dredged, sewage, however, continues to flow into the river.
A year later, in July 2013, Parrikar had promised to set up a river water treatment plant at Shirvodem in Navelim to treat the Sal’s waters. The fate of the plan remains unknown.
That apart, Parrikar had assured to provide holistic solutions to Margao’s development issues by formulating a master plan on the lines of ‘Imagine Panaji’ project. However, just when the groundwork for the project began, he shifted to Delhi and Imagine Margao got relegated to the background and has remained there since.