Goa: Centre promises funds, tech help for sea link

Chief minister Digambar Kamat said that the Planning Commission has assured to provide financial and technical support to the proposed Dona Paula-Vasco sea link during its meeting with the Goan delegation on Thursday. Addressing the media on Friday, Kamat said the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia highly appreciated Goa’s plans to put a sea link between Dona Paula and Vasco. Ahluwalia even directed the Planning Commission’s advisor in charge of infrastructure to help Goa in the design of the sea link project, Kamat added.

The Planning Commission has, however, urged the state government to see if the sea link can be linked to the national highway because then it would have tremendous potential. It would also reduce the congestion on the Zuari bridge, the Planning Commission opined. When asked about the present status of the sea link project, Kamat said a committee, which had been formed under the chief secretary for the purpose, has already collected information about the Worli-Bandra sea link in Mumbai. The committee will soon call for bids for appointment of consultants for the project, the chief minister said.

The chief minister said the Planning Commission held discussions with the Goan delegation for almost two-and-half hours and finalised the Plan Outlay for Goa for 2009-10 for Rs 2,240 crore. This includes additional central assistance of Rs 40 crore for national games. Kamat said this is a “substantial increase” from the plan outlay of the previous two years. Kamat said that after viewing Goa’s presentation and demands, the Planning Commission assured that in addition to the plan outlay, it would consider special assistance to Goa for hosting of national games 2011 and other demands like grants to celebrate Golden Jubilee of Goa’s liberation, beach safety, expansion of Kala Academy, sharing of burden of 6th pay commission implementation, etc.

Regarding the other commitments of the Prime Minister to Goa, Kamat said the National Highways Authority of India has already initiated steps to hasten the road widening work of the national highway from Belgaum to Panaji. The work has already been tendered and the work order will be issued by the end of the month. Kamat said that the alignment of the road widening of the National Highway 17 from Patradevi to Pollem has “more or less been finalised,” and the bids will be called in the next two or three months, he said.