Team Goemkarponn
MORMUGAO: The Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) on Tuesday held a special council meeting to discuss several issues related to its jurisdiction, with a key focus on the proposed construction of a new market pavilion at the site of the existing old vegetable market.
MMC chairperson Girish Borker informed the media that the existing structure, known as Pavilion 1 and 2, had become unsafe and needed to be demolished for redevelopment.
“We have an old vegetable market which is called Pavilion 1 and 2. We are coming up with a new market project at the site because the building has become old and dilapidated,” said Borker.
He added that vendors had already been served notices to vacate the premises, but many had requested alternate locations — a request the council is unable to accommodate.
“They have asked us to give them different locations, but we don’t have any space available. They also have a huge outstanding amount to pay us, and they are placed there under a sopo system. These are not regular shops but spaces allotted to vendors based on daily sopo collection,” Borker explained.
Borker mentioned that the council was optimistic about completing the new building quickly. “The building is not huge, and a new structure can be constructed within six months. Even if they vacate the premises now, we can have the new market building in place by December end at the most,” he said.
He further said that the council would hold a separate special meeting with the market vendors on Thursday to discuss the way forward, including recovery of pending dues.
“We have now decided to convene a separate special meeting with these market vendors on Thursday and also decide on the outstanding amount with them. The outstanding amount is as much as Rs 70 lakh, and we need to know how they will clear the amount and whether they will do so before we hand over the new building back to them,” Borker said.
MMC councillor Deepak Naik clarified that while some vendors had long operated from the pavilion market, their space allocation under the sopo system did not guarantee a claim to new shops.
“We have asked them to vacate the property, and we will have more detailed discussions with the vendors to help them. As per our rules, there is no hard and fast provision to give shops to vendors who were allotted space based on the daily sopo system. We are still trying to find the best option to help them and benefit them in this new project,” said Naik.
Another important matter taken up at the meeting was the potential relocation of various government offices back to the MMC building. However, the council decided to defer this point due to concerns over space and pending payments.
“We have had many government offices in our building in the past. There has been a demand to shift these offices back to the MMC building, but we have deferred this point because we have to check on the availability of space and also check the outstanding amount that was to be paid by these offices when they were based here earlier,” Borker said.
Naik added that several of the spaces once occupied by government departments had since been repurposed for municipal use.
“We had the deputy collector’s office, excise department, health department, civil supplies, and communidade office in our building earlier. The space requested by the civil supplies department is now being used by the MMC accounts section. The space requested by the excise department has been given to the Women and Child Welfare Department, where we recently inaugurated an Urban Livelihood Centre,” said Naik.
He concluded, “We have to check the availability of space and other aspects, and hence we have decided to defer the point during the meeting.”
