panaji on november 27 2015 enthusiastic citizens gathered at a city hotel to share their vision for the smart city mission the eager residents had no inkling that seven years later their ideas would turn into dust and debris while their ignored suggestions would flow like silt into the citys storm water drainspolitical interference catastrophic mismanagement a bumbling administration corruption and indecisiveness have reduced the city of panaji into a living breathing nightmare for the residents among the 100odd indian cities picked to be developed into smart cities panaji is among the few where the urban local body is not executing the project and where the reins have been placed in the hands of consultants and a special purpose vehicle christened imagine panaji smart city development ltd ipscdlthe interagency rivalry and frequent transfers of the ipscdl chief executive officer only served to further turn the smart city mission into a rudderless ship with corrupt politicians and inept bureaucrats fighting at the helm as soon as the smart city mission was announced there was a clamour politically and within the administration for the smart city funds their project management was pathetic and it is now a matter of too little too late said a senior government officialtake for example the ongoing sewerage projects in the state capital in june 2021 toi had pointed out how pwd floated tenders for the project without undertaking a detailed study and estimate of the sewerage project in six wards of panaji in a rush to spend rs 250 crore of unutilised funds before the 2022 assembly elections the statelevel high powered committee sanctioned funds to upgrade the citys sewerage network and to create four smart roadspwd engineers and ipscdl spoke about laying a new sewerage network but ignored the need for diversion of sewage while the work is under way the contractors did not receive any maps of underground utilities or a schematic layout of the domestic sewerage lines and certainly no structured plan for phasewise digging the result damaged water lines broken sewage lines sending raw sewage flowing into compounds in mala and barricaded roadsnorth goa collector mamu hage who till recently had the additional responsibility of steering the smart city mission conceded that the smart city projects were progressing at a slower pace primarily because of the unavailability of old plans of utility lines laid beneath the roadsthere are a lot of other utility connections running underground so when we try to build a drain as per our initial plan we find that there are other difficulties under the surface nobody really knows about the old plans only the labourers or contractors know the difficulties hage said in april with patience running out and monsoon fast approaching the government shunted out hage hage joined the long list of former chief executive officers of ipscdl unlike other states where continuity has been maintainedinitially the projects went into the wrong hands and into the hands of people who had no professional experience with