The humble paan has made Panaji Mayor Surendra Furtado see red.
The Mayor of the State capital on Friday formed a special municipal task force to locate paan-selling kiosks and seize their ware, in order to
stop the paan-sellers from playing their trade.
“The special task force headed by a senior official of the Corporation of the City of Panaji, will identify paan sellers and evict them to ensure that the city is paan-free,” Furtado told The Pioneer on Friday.
Chewing paan, he says does not fit into the cultural ethos of the Ponjekar (as natives of the State capital are often referred to).
“Certainly not the stains which spitting of paan leaves across the city and are an eyesore,” Furtado said.
There are several score paan-sellers in the small, but quaint capital city which is located on the banks of the Mandovi river.
Furtado claims, that not only is paan-selling an illegal business, because the city corporations licence regime does not cover, he also adds that plastic pouches in which paans are sold also clogs the drains in the city.
“The entire drain was full of plastic paan pouches. It was disgusting. Also wherever you go, you see red stains, where people eating paan have spat out the juice,” Furtado further said.
“That means the business is illegal. Plus the paan-sellers are squatting on the city’s pavements selling their ware,” he also said.
Chewing paan is a favoured habit of many, especially after a meal, when the betel leaf, is stuffed with lime paste and sprinkled with crushed betel nut and a variety of spices and other assortments.
The mayor however claims that paan eating does not fit into the “cultural ethos” of the city, which was built by the Portuguese several centuries back as a stop gap capital, when the existing capital of the times Old Goa was affected by plague. The state capital is also gearing up for the smart city project and has been short-listed by the Union ministry for urban development for development as a smart city.
“A Goan would rather prefer a swig of feni than paan,” Furtado said.