File photo of the river Sal dredging at Navelim.
MARGAO
The river Sal must have been desilted along the Khareband-Navelim stretch at least on three occasions in the last two decades, but without addressing the burning issue of plugging discharge of raw sewage from the commercial capital in the river, funds spent on the desilting work literally went down the drain.
The first desilting of the river Sal was taken up around 2002 when Margao MLA Digambar Kamat was the state’s Urban Development Minister. Under this project, the entire stretch of the river from Mungul to Khareband was desilted.
The river stretch was taken up for desilting the second time by the Captain of Ports in early 2016 when Laxmikant Parsekar was the state’s Chief Minister.
The Captain of Ports took up the project of desilting of the river from the Khareband bridge to the Telaulim-Varca bridge, a six-km stretch, at a cost of Rs 3.76 crore.
The last time, the river Sal was desilted was a year ago when the project was taken up under the river Rejuvenation plan. Sadly, the government of the day has yet to pursue any cleanup work.
