Some of the potholes identified by the Congress leaders during a survey of the Canacona-Margao stretch of the highway.
CANACONA
Challenging PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral for claiming there are no potholes but only scaling of the highway at Canacona, Congress leaders sent him videos of the potholes on the highway and told him not to play with the sentiments of people from Canacona.
Following agitations by the Congress over the dilapidated stretch of the NH66 highway between Margao and Canacona, Cabral inspected the road in Canacona a day after he took charge of the PWD and is reported to have claimed that there are no potholes but only scaling of the road with the upper surface washed away.
Cabral also decided to blacklist the contractor for defaulting on the Margao-Canacona roadwork and said he would get a new contractor to complete the work.
On Tuesday, a Canacona Congress team led by GPCC General Secretary Janardhan Bhandari and Canacona Congress Block President Prahlay Bhagat inspected the dilapidated stretch and recorded a video of the potholes, before submitting it to the PWD minister.
“We simply don't know how he could make such a blatant statement that he did not find any potholes on the Margao-Canacona highway during his visit to Canacona. These insensitive statements by him as PWD minister is mocking the suffering of Canaconkars. We have been regularly following the issue of the dilapidated stretch of road for the last almost three years,” said Bhandari.
“We know how two-wheeler riders and other motorists have been suffering on this road and we can even show him how a sick person or a pregnant woman travelling in an ambulance suffer on this road.”
Bhagat said they had undertaken a special drive to record footage of potholes to apprise the PWD minister of the bad condition of the highway and to prove that the grievances of motorists and commuters from Canacona were factual and legitimate.
