Pandal set up for I-Day event collapses at Sanguem Dam

While no one was injured in the incident, many people from Sanguem and the Selaulim evacuees, who had opposed the felicitation of farmers at the Selaulim Dam, wonder what would have been the consequences if the incident had to take place while the programme was underway.

“With barely two days for the event on Independence Day, WRD officials have already put a pandal contractor to work overtime on erecting the pandal at an alternate site within the precincts of the Selaulim Dam without wasting any more time. The new pandal is likely to be ready by Monday,” said a source.

The Independence Day function organised by the WRD is expected to be attended by over 800 invitees, including over 300 farmers invited by the department to be felicitated for having associated themselves with the department.

Incidentally, on Thursday, a group of evacuees who are yet to be provided with housing and agricultural plots of land for the sacrifices they have made for construction of the Selaulim Dam, decried the plans to felicitate the farmers.

The affected Selaulim evacuees claimed that the function to felicitate the farmers who have been using water supplied from the Selaulim Dam is highly inappropriate as the government is yet to consider the long-pending demands of the Selaulim evacuees for grant of housing and agricultural plots of land to around 79 families who were considered missing at the time of survey operations.

The group of affected Selaulim evacuees have threatened to show black flags to the ministers and government officials attending the function.

After the pandal collapsed on Saturday, the Selaulim evacuees claimed that nature had already taught the WRD a lesson for ignoring their long-pending demands and appealed to the government to act judiciously and get their demands resolved at the earliest.