MARGAO
Is the Cutbona fishing jetty figuring in Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s ambitious agenda to make Goa open-defecation free now that the government is mulling on constructing 70,000 toilets across the state?
So far the Directorate of Fisheries, Health, Panchayats, Deputy Collector and Tourism have been passing the buck as a result of which not a single toilet has come up at the fishing jetty for the 4000-odd migrant workers employed on the fishing vessels.
The ongoing fishing season is due to end three months from now.
The Goan understands that the Directorate of Fisheries, which had drawn up an ambitious plan to build 50 toilets at the fishing jetty for the sanitation needs of the migrant work force, recently wrote a letter to the Tourism Department to explore the possibility of building temporary mobile toilets at the jetty.
Following this development, a joint inspection of the Cutbona fishing jetty was conducted by officials of the Fisheries and Tourism Department to identify land for the purpose at the jetty. But as it has turned out and since the land in question falls within the CRZ, the Tourism Department has asked the fisheries officials to get the NOCs from the GCZMA before taking any decision to set up the toilets at the jetty.
Velim Sarpanch and President of Cutbona Boat Owners Union Savio D’Silva told the Goan that despite the panchayat making correspondence to the Directorate of Fisheries over the years, not a single toilet block has come up at the Cutbona fishing jetty till date. “Let us wait and see whether there’s any outcome of the joint inspection of the jetty site by fisheries and tourism officials,” Savio said.
What’s interesting to note is the bitter fact that despite the sanitation issue occupying the minds of as many as two Margao Sub-Divisional Magistrates, a permanent solution has eluded the authorities
till date. Since the time of former Fisheries Director, Shamila Monteiro, the Directorate of Fisheries had been insisting for close to half a decade now that the sanitary problems thrown up by the presence of the huge migrant work force will be resolved once the 50-seater toilet block becomes a reality.
While the directorate had roped in Sulabh International to take up the construction of the 50 toilets, the project could not materialize in the absence of a sewage treatment plant (STP).
