MARGAO
Even as sanitation and parking amenities finally became a reality at the world-famous Colva beach, the Margao-Mungul-Colva road continues to remain incomplete.
Taken up for development ahead of the BRICS summit in October 2016, work on the proposed two-km four-lane road from Mungul to the Colva four road junction near the Our Lady of Merces Church, Colva, still remains incomplete.
A ride down the Mungul-Colva road reveals that the four-laning of the road is yet to be complete in all respects. Half-a-decade after the road was widened ahead of the BRICS summit to ensure smooth travel for the foreign dignitaries, the widened lane still does not play host to traffic.
Reason: The authorities are yet to hot-mix the 2-km stretch to date, leaving motorists to use the existing single-lane road. With the widened portion of the road yet to be hot-mixed, one can find fast food gaddas doing business on the stretch. The widened portion has also come in handy for parking vehicles for business establishments on the stretch.
Inquiries by The Goan has revealed that the work could not be taken up on priority initially after the project was handed over to the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC), before it was handed back to the PWD for execution.
Hopes were raised recently that the stretch would be four-laned with a coat of hot-mix after the PWD had tendered hot-mixing of the four-lane two-km stretch of the Mungul-Colva road at an estimated cost of Rs 10-odd crore.
If PWD executive engineer, Prasad Panandikar is to be believed, work on the project, however, is now stalled again, but for a different reason. He says work on the project will not commence so soon, with the Sewerage Corporation executing the work of laying the sewerage discharge line from Colva to Mungul, which will carry the treated sewage waters to the river Sal at Khareband.
In fact, Panandikar said the four-laning and hot-mixing of the Mungul-Colva road will be taken up only after the sewerage discharge line is laid. “It may take a couple of months for the four-laning work to commence since work on laying the sewerage discharge line is underway”, he added.
Asked to comment on the presence of kiosks on the stretch of the widened Mungul-Colva road, Panandikar was clear in saying it’s for the local bodies to initiate action. “If any structure is erected on the widened portion, the PWD will treat it as an encroachment. As far as movable carts and kiosks are concerned, the action falls in the domain of the local bodies”, he asserted.
