MARGAO
The railways has decided to retain the sluice gate of the Nogozan lake following the plea made by farmers and villages of Guirdolim to avoid flooding in the nearby area and fields during the monsoons.
In fact, Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd General Manager, Projects Shashibhshan Sahoo in a letter to the Executive Engineer, Water Resources Department has urged the WRD to drop the estimate for the reconstruction from the estimate which was earlier incorporated in the detailed estimate.
This comes following an inspection carried out in the area around the sluice gate on January 19 last by the railway officials, including Sahoo and other technical staff, besides villagers, including Marcelino Fernandes, Mario, Jose, Mathew and Agostine Antao.
In the letter, Sahoo drew attention of the WRD, Executive Engineer to the proposal to shift the sluice gate to accommodate a loop line at the Chandor yard. “The farmers and villagers of the same village have made a request to retain the sluice gate stating their problems of flooding in the nearby area during monsoon. Considering their problems, the railway authority has decided to retain the existing sluice gate structure by constructing a retaining wall admeasuring 500 metres in their own land without disturbing the water body. So, the reconstruction of sluice gate should be dropped from your estimate which was earlier incorporated in the detailed estimate,” Sahoo stated in the letter.
Meanwhile, Agostinho Antao, the chairperson of the Guirdolim Village Bio-Diversity Committee, informed that a joint inspection of the sluice gate of Nogozan lake in the village was carried out by WRD officials and the villagers on March 21.
He pointed out that as per the written measurements of the RVNL given on January 19, the Railways has reduced the width of the platform from 27 metres to 13 metres in order to save the sluice gate of the Nogozan lake from shifting towards the South, which would have destroyed the Nogozan fields and coconut plantations.
