MARGAO
Around three decades after their rehabilitation near the ESI hospital, the migrant-inhabited Azad Nagar locality may be finally connected to Margao’s underground sewerage line.
Thanks to the High Court directions in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) Writ Petition filed by Navelim resident Antonio Alvares, the process of filing applications by the individual houses dotting the Azad Nagar locality seeking sewerage connections has begun.
What the powers that be and politicos, besides PWD and Margao civic officials failed to do all these years, to channel the wastewater generated in the locality, will soon become a thing of the past.
Upon the High Court's directions to the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) to make the Azad Nagar inhabitants apply for individual sewerage connections, the MMC sanitation section has managed to get 101 households to make applications to the PWD, sewerage and efforts are underway to make the balance 50 households to apply for the connections.
The PWD, water supply division is believed to have issued around 150-odd water connections to the Azad Nagar area of the city.
What has brought a sudden rush of activity at Azad Nagar and forced the MMC to push the inhabitants to apply for the sewerage connections is the High Court's directions and the set timeline to file an affidavit before the next date of the hearing scheduled on April 10.
The Azad Nagar issue is simple. Petitioner Antonio Alvares had drawn the attention of the High Court in his PIL that the wastewater from the households of the migrant-inhabited locality is finding its way to the stormwater nullahs emptying into the Salpem lake, at Navelim. Inquiries by the officials revealed that though the public toilets at Azad Nagar were connected to the underground sewerage line, wastewater from the individual houses was flowing into the nullah in the absence of individual sewerage connections.
When the High Court had first asked the authorities to explore the possibility of getting the colony connected to the underground sewerage line, Margao MLA Digambar Kamat got the officials to form a sub-committee to take the process to a logical conclusion.
Unhappy over the delay tactics adopted by members of the panel wherein there was not even a proper recording of minutes of the meetings, Petitioner Alvares drew the attention of the High Court at the last date of hearing, forcing the court to observe that the MMC will have to bear the cost of the sewerage connections if the households are not taking the connections.
Fortunately for the MMC, the civic officials got hold of a PWD notification wherein it was decided by the government that sewerage connections should be issued to the households and the cost to be recovered from the water bills in instalments.
As the MMC has compiled a list of 101 applications for sewerage connections, civic officials maintained that it is now for the PWD to recover the cost from the inhabitants through the water bills.
