MAPUSA
It seems the new PWD Minister Digambar Kamat has barely settled into his chair before his cabinet colleagues began dialling him like a 24x7 road helpline.
After a pit stop in Vasco earlier this week, Kamat’s latest “field trip” brought him to Porvorim “ this time on the insistence of Tourism Minister and local MLA Rohan Khaunte, who wanted him to witness first-hand the moonscape that National Highway-66 has become.
The elevated corridor project here is still crawling, but the service roads around it have gone to pieces “ quite literally.
What was once a highway now resembles a giant obstacle course of potholes and puddles, testing the shock absorbers of even the sturdiest SUVs.
Kamat, to his credit, didn’t look away. He admitted the situation was bad and promptly ordered engineers to get jet patchers working round the clock for five days.
“The welfare of commuters is our focal point. If the roads are bad, the first target is the MLA and the government,” he said, adding that a nodal officer had been appointed to monitor repairs and more patching machines could be roped in.
He even dangled the possibility of hotmixing stretches “ provided the skies don’t open.
Khaunte, meanwhile, played the voice of his frustrated constituents.
“I’ve been getting calls every day about the bad roads. Even panchayat and ZP members are facing public anger,” he said..
Yet, when reporters tossed the obvious question about the progress of the elevated corridor, both ministers did not comment on the issue.
For now, the message is clear: the potholes may be patched, but the politics around them is only widening.
