MAPUSA
With the southwest monsoon knocking on Goa’s door, the grim reality on the State’s roads has already begun to unfold – battered, potholed and dug-up stretches are poised to become death traps across the State.
Despite official directives from district Collectors banning road digging during the monsoon, several roads across Goa lie in an appalling state.
What’s worse, critical repairs and patchwork, which should have been completed in the dry months, remain untouched.
In Mapusa, the main thoroughfare opposite the Goa Football Association stadium at Duler presents a stark example of administrative apathy.
A large pothole in the middle of the road threatens to cause serious accidents. With the authorities remaining indifferent, some civic-minded citizens have taken matters into their own hands.
They’ve stuffed the pothole with plastic waste and set up a makeshift warning sign using sticks and a board to alert oncoming traffic.
Across town, the situation is no better. Saligao’s main road leading to the Pilerne Industrial Estate – dug up by the electricity department to lay a 33KV power line – has been reduced to a muddy mess.
With no signs of resurfacing or tarring in sight, residents are bracing for another monsoon of slush, skidding and suffering. Ironically, this is the second consecutive year the same stretch has been excavated – last year it was the water resources department laying pipelines, this year it’s the power line. The result? Perpetual inconvenience for the locals.
Even minimal attempts at road compaction during recent rains are proving futile. The work, executed under wet conditions, offers no real improvement and, with no immediate plans for hotmixing, locals are looking at another four to five months of treacherous travel.
This disturbing pattern repeats itself in Arpora and on the main CHOGM road in Saligao, where work for the same power line has left the roads broken and unrepaired.
Meanwhile, in Mapusa, grand claims by local MLA Joshua D’Souza about Rs 31 crore allocated for hotmixing lie in stark contrast to the grim condition on the ground.
No patchwork has been undertaken, let alone any serious resurfacing.
In other parts of the State it’s the same story with roads lying in state of disrepair.
“The public will just have to endure it,” a senior PWD engineer admitted on the condition of anonymity, adding that contractors still need to complete their tasks and that roads must “settle” during the rains before any hotmixing can be done.
The idea that roads need to “settle” in the rain before being hotmixed may have made sense decades ago, but in an age of advanced construction technology, such reasoning seems outdated – even absurd.
There is, however, a small glimmer of relief.
According to Executive Engineer of PWD (NH), Jude Carvalho, the National Highway-66 has been thoroughly checked.
“Except for a 5.15 km stretch at Porvorim marked as a construction zone, NH-66 from Pernem to Cortalim has no potholes and proper water drainage,” Carvalho confirmed.
But for the rest of Goa, the monsoon spells more potholes, skidding vehicles, traffic snarls and daily commuting hazards. Road safety activists and local residents alike are calling for a long-term policy change.
“If only the government could dedicate April and May to repair and patching up roads, year after year, we wouldn’t be in this mess every monsoon,” said Aurio Carvalho, a Saligao resident.
As the rains approach, the people of Goa once again brace themselves – not just for the weather, but for the predictable negligence that leaves them struggling through a season of slush, slips and silent suffering.
