MAPUSA
Pruning of trees and cleaning of nullahs was on the top of the agenda, as Mapusa MLA, Joshua D’Souza chaired a meeting with senior government officials and issued directions to complete all pre-monsoon works before May 15.
A joint meeting of the public works department (PWD), water resources department (WRD), electricity, national highway, deputy collector and mamlatdar’s office, health services and civic officials was held in the municipality.
The one-hour meeting deliberated on pruning of trees, de-silting of major nullahs and roadside drains and fixing broken roads.
The Mapusa MLA stressed on pruning of trees and directed the electricity department and the office of the deputy collector to coordinate with each other to do the needful.
“We have noticed that there has been a blame game between the electricity department and the deputy collector’s office on cutting of trees. We have to focus on dangerous trees and those trees which hang on power lines. Necessary steps have to be taken to prune the trees,” D’Souza said.
He also directed the WRD to clear the major nullahs in the town so that there are no complaints of flooding this monsoon.
There are 15 nullahs in all in Mapusa.
Chief Officer, Sitaram Sawal has recently written to the WRD directing it to clear the nullahs before the monsoon.
The PWD officials informed that as per the government direction no funds were allotted to the department to clean the roadside drains along the major district roads (MDR).
MMC Municipal Engineer-I, Hussain Shah Muzawar said that work on at least some major district roads has to be taken up by the PWD.
MMC, Chairperson, Shubhangi Vaigankar informed that the civic body has already started its pre-monsoon works and have de-silted the drains of four wards so far.
“We have also taken up work of de-silting the drains in the municipal market. Work is going on a war footing and we expect to complete the work before the onset of monsoon,” Vaigankar said.
A review meeting of all the departments has been called again on April 20.
