Panaji: With the monsoon just over a month away, the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) commenced the demolition of a three-storey commercial building that Goa College of Engineering (GEC) deemed to be structurally unsafe. As a safety measure, CCP also went ahead and demolished about 29 temporary shops that were erected by traders around the dilapidated building.The demolition was briefly halted on Friday after vendors approached the Bombay high court seeking relief, but the court refused to halt the demolition. The building that is being demolished is situated between the El Dorado building and Falcon Apartments in the market area.Vendors who had stalls in the vicinity sought urgent relief from the court, but the court permitted the demolition to continue after recording CCP’s assurance that all stalls will be refurbished and restored to the vendors.“The municipality issued us a notice asking us to remove our stalls. We asked for alternative locations. We have not heard back from the CCP. Our shops have been closed for 11 months. We were told that we can repair our shops if they get damaged, and restart our business again. We have no problem if the building is demolished, but let our stalls continue there or allow us to shift our shops to some other place. But they did not tell us anything,” said Mohammad Ali, a storekeeper. The CCP has assured the existing vendors that possession of the stalls will be handed back to them after the demolition work is completed.Earlier in the day, when heavy machinery contracted by the CCP arrived on site to start dismantling the structure and the stalls, local traders objected, saying that the action was contrary to the status quo ordered by the court. The structure was sealed for more than a year over fears of an imminent collapse and danger to passers-by.
