MARGAO
Will the Tolleaband water body in Benaulim go the picturesque Salpem lake in Navelim way, where the western bypass was laid and commissioned without stilts by constructing a huge earthen embankment?
Welcome to the Salpem lake in Navelim, where the bypass passing through the water fields have been built without honouring the promise made by former Chief Minister late Manohar Parrikar after returning to power in 2017.
The former Chief Minister had shared the concerns of the people of Navelim when they demanded the construction of the bypass passing through the Salpem water body on stilts. He had even announced that the Union Ministry of Surface Transport had agreed to the Goa government’s plea to sanction additional funds to build the bypass on stilts passing through Salpem.
The ground reality, however, appears totally different. Instead of building the entire stretch passing through Salpem fields on stilts, one comes across stilts only at the road level crossings near the Sirvodem STP treatment plant and the Nagmodem road, Navelim. The middle portion of the bypass has been raised and built with embankments with a couple of water passes to pave way for water flow. In fact, travellers on the existing Margao-Navelim highway can see a huge wall like structure built in the low-lying fields of Salpem lake, which actually is the western bypass road, throwing up a simple question “ whether the Tolleaband water body in Benaulim will meet a similar fate?
For, there’s still no sign of the Goa government as well as the Centre taking a call on the repeated and fervent pleas made by Benaulim villagers to build the bypass passing through the Tolleaband water body on stilts. Apprehensions of the villagers seemed not totally misplaced with trucks loads of mud being dumped along the Tolleaband stretch of the bypass. Dozens of trucks plied along the mud-filled road, dumping tons of mud along the bypass alignment passing through the lake, indicating that work on land filling, apparently to raise an embankment to pave way for the bypass without stilts, has resumed at the site.
In fact, the villagers seemed keeping their fingers crossed on the issue, pointing out that while land filling, though on a low key, has resumed at Tolleaband, they haven’t yet received any reply from the Goa PWD or Centre on the issue. As things stand today, the latest PWD plan approved by Minister Nilesh Cabral has proposed to build as many as 12 water passes along the Tolleaband bypass stretch to take care of flooding, confirming fears that the huge embankment raised at the Salpem lake, Navelim may also take shape at Tolleaband, Benaulim if the demand for stilts finds no favour with the government.
Sources do not rule out the possibility of the villagers again knocking the doors of the High Court for justice, more in the light of the damning report of the Water Resources Department (WRD), that Tolleaband and Benaulim had witnessed inundation during the last monsoons. In fact, the WRD report was categorical in pointing out that Tolleaband lay submerged under water for hours during the rains when the PWD, National Highway was yet to raise the earthen embankment through the water body to make way for the bypass.
