The proposal by the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) to build a restaurant inside the town’s municipal garden has not been well received by local residents who have cautioned the civic body against turning the iconic location into a commercial space.Sumant Joglekar, a resident of Gogol, termed the idea as “foolish and absurd.” “This only points to the bankruptcy of ideas of the council for generating revenue for the municipality,” Joglekar said. “The council should realise that the garden is a place for recreation and relaxation, not something for the municipality to earn revenue from. The land was gifted by the owners to the municipality for the sole purpose of developing it into a garden and a children’s park. The municipality should refrain from doing anything that will change the nature and ambience of the place.”The garden has served as a fertile ground for sowing the seeds of various revolutions that the state witnessed — Goa’s Liberation, the Opinion Poll movement, student agitations, and the Konkani theatre movement. The protagonists of the various movements that had made the municipal garden an integral part of those historic events have already rued the “degradation” of the public park.If former student leader Sandesh Prabhudessai said that the fencing has “taken away the very life and soul of the garden,” Joglekar said that “with the park being caged, its glory is lost and it’s repulsive.” Businessman Vinayak Mordekar argued that the sanctity of the place should be preserved at all costs. “Allowing commercial activities inside the garden will not only vitiate the atmosphere but curtail the already shrinking spaces for free thought and discussion that the municipal garden of Margao is symbolic of,” Mordekar said.Joglekar said that instead of building a restaurant in the garden for revenue generation, the MMC should tap other avenues — tightening tax collection, recovering revenue lost in pilferage and misappropriation, etc. He warned that the people of Margao would oppose tooth and nail any moves by the MMC to set up a restaurant in the garden. “The Margao MLA should pull the ears of the council and make it drop the proposal in the larger interest of society,” Joglekar said.
Published On Oct 11, 2024 at 06:00 PM IST
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