Residents allege delay in repairing roads puts lives at risk
CIVIC APATHY: The broken road near the State Bank of India, dug up for utility works and left untarred for over a year, continues to inconvenience bank customers and poses daily risks for students negotiating the stretch to enter the nearby school.
MAPUSA
For over a year now, motorists and pedestrians navigating key roads around the bustling market area of Mapusa have been forced to endure broken, stone-filled roads that pose serious safety risks.
Internal roads in Ward 9 and Ward 19 – dug up to lay underground power lines and water pipelines – remain unrepaired, turning key access routes into accident-prone stretches and testing the patience of residents, traders and daily commuters.
The dug-up roads, instead of being properly resurfaced, have merely been filled with loose stones, making movement treacherous.
Almost all the affected lanes lead directly to the Mapusa market, one of the town’s busiest commercial hubs, and are used daily by hundreds of pedestrians, two-wheelers and four-wheelers.
One of the worst-hit stretches is the road near the State Bank of India branch, which has remained in a damaged condition for months.
The uneven surface has made access to the bank extremely difficult for customers, particularly senior citizens.
“Every visit to the bank feels like an obstacle course. Elderly people struggle to walk and two-wheelers skid on the stones. It’s dangerous and completely avoidable,” said a local resident.
Adding to the concern is the presence of a prominent school, Dnyanprassarak Vidyalaya in the same vicinity. Parents dropping their children to school say the broken road has become a daily ordeal.
“My child is in primary school and I fear every morning. Small children can easily trip and fall on these stones. Despite repeated complaints, nothing has changed,” said a parent.
Residents allege that the prolonged delay in repairing the roads has put lives at risk, especially during the monsoon when water-filled potholes and loose gravel make the roads even more hazardous.
Responding to the complaints, Public Works Department junior engineer Saiesh Naik assured that repair work would be taken up shortly. He said the delay was due to technical issues related to road height.
“In some areas, the height of the road has increased considerably, so milling will be required to bring it down. That is why the hotmixing work has been delayed,” Naik said, adding that the full grouting work would be completed within a week, while hotmixing is expected to be taken up within a month or two.
