PONDA
Officials of Sewage and Infrastructure Development Corporation (SIDC) along with PWD officials and Ponda MLA Lavu Mamledar were on Friday confronted with questions raised by Ponda councillors over the proposed Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) in the town.
The councillors exposed SIDC officials for awarding the tender without any land acquisition.
The PMC ruling group were responding to PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, who had held the council responsible for shifting the STP project from Ponda to Kavalem when he had laid the foundation stone for the STP at Kavalem on February 5. The sewerage system will cover Kavalem, Bandora and surrounding areas at an estimated to cost Rs 203 crore.
Stung by Dhavalikar's criticism, PMC had clarified its stand and demanded a clear picture of the project. Responding to PMC's queries, a presentation was held with SIDC officials on Friday.
All councillors present at the meeting clarified that they were never against the project, but claimed that government agencies had failed to take them into confidence.
“We asked them whether land acquisition was carried out for the project. The officials along with Mamledar were mum on this issue. How can we go ahead with the project without knowing anything about its details?” asked PMC chairperson Dr Radhika Nayak.
Speaking to The Goan, Dr Nayak hailed the technology and said they have no issue with the STP and network, which will be laid using horizontal directional drilling technology, which is accepted across the world.
“But they don’t have any roadmap. We have been kept in the dark on the plant's location. We are also unaware about the plan of laying pipes,” she said.
Dr Nayak claimed that she along with other councillors, Venkatesh Naik, Sitaram alias Dadi Dangui and Sunil Desai, had raised several questions to the officials, which did not yield any satisfactory replies.
“We don’t have any doubts about the technology. But when they award a tender for the Ponda plant, we should know how much it will cost the consumer and where the plant will come up in Ponda. When we asked all these questions, nobody could answer us,” Dr Nayak said.
Sunil Desai, a local BJP leader, said there is a need for a STP but not in the way sewerage corporation is going ahead. “They should study the requirement of Ponda town and to ascertain if we need three plants or if one is enough,” Desai said.
The councillors alleged that Mamledar did not speak a single word at the meeting and was silent over the land acquisition issue.
When contacted, Mamledar defended his silence at the meet and said he did not feel the need to respond to the queries put forth by the councillors.
