Renovation work at Margao’s Lohia Maidan set to miss June 18 deadline
Times of India | 2 weeks ago | 15-06-2022 | 04:47 am
Times of India
2 weeks ago | 15-06-2022 | 04:47 am
Margao: The beautification work of Lohia Maidan has missed the June 18 deadline, almost. The 18th June Kranti Din Samiti has, however, decided to go ahead with organising Goa Revolution Day at the historic site on June 18, notwithstanding the incomplete status of the beautification project. “There was some delay on the part of the contractor in executing the work, and then some modifications that were suggested added to the delay. However, we are happy with the way the work is in progress and are thankful to the government for providing a facelift to the maidan which was long overdue,” Avinash Shirodkar, president of the Samiti said. The beautification work had courted controversies recently – one, over a wall being built around the power supply transformer erected by the electricity department right inside the compound wall, and the other over a door opening provided right behind the stage. Significantly, despite Lohia Maidan holding a special place in the annals of history, the site doesn’t figure in the list of protected monuments of the state government’s directorate of archives and archeology. It was on June 18, 1946 that Lohia addressed a gathering giving a clarion call for Goans to join the freedom struggle. This led to a revolution that culminated in Goa’s liberation on December 19, 1961. The directorate of archives and archaeology carries out restoration, renovation, refurbishment, beautification of its protected monuments. In a written reply tabled in the House by then minister of archives and archaeology Chandrakant Kavlekar to a question by Margao MLA Digambar Kamat on October 19, 2021, it was informed that the directorate was unaware of any renovation work being carried out at Lohia maidan “as it is not a protected monument.” The renovation work at Lohia Maidan has been under way since the last two years. Kavlekar had also replied in the negative to Kamat’s query whether any action had been taken by the department to secure the martyrs memorial and Lohia’s statue and other items of historical importance at Lohia Maidan. However, a report on the site inspection of five martyrs memorial sites, including Lohia Maidan, carried out by a PWD architect along with an official of department of archives and archaeology in April 2021 was furnished along with the reply. The report said that though Lohia Maidan was in a “fairly well maintained condition, a lot of old stone plaques were seen thrown around near the rear of the compound wall.” “These plaques could be reinstalled in stone pedestals at strategic locations along the terraced edges or as a cluster in a select spot given their due importance and relevance in the history of the city,” the report read. Bust of Bernarda Pires de Silva at Neura, martyrs' memorials at Cuncolim and Assolna, and the Bharatkar Hegde memorial at Quepem were the other site inspections mentioned in the report.
![Renovation work at Margao’s Lohia Maidan set to miss June 18 deadline]()
