MARGAO
Armed with placards, the residents assembled in front of the South Goa District Collectorate building on Monday to protest against the government s ill-conceived plan to build the proposed bypass by filling of low-lying areas along the alignment from Dramapur village to Verna. Social activist Ernest Moraes later told the media that the residents of Verna, Nuvem, Seraulim, Benaulim and the coastal villages of Carmona, Orlim, Varca, Navelim, Dramapur, Colva and Cavelossim had submitted a memorandum to the District Collector expressing their strong reservations on the construction of the bypass by filling of land. This government is not paying heed to the apprehensions raised by local residents. The PWD and its contractor went ahead with the the filling work in the fields. The heavy rains have washed away the soil in fields and water bodies,” Moraes said. He recalled that though the local residents had forcefully demanded construction of the bypass on stilts, both Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar and PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar preferred to ignore the ground reality. Moraes demanded to know how the government is going ahead with the construction of the six-lane Western bypass when plans are afoot to build a four-lane highway from Polem to Pernem at a cost of over Rs 3,000 crore. “We are not objecting to the bypass, but it should be constructed on stilts to avoid an environmental disaster in the Nuvem-Seraulim-Benaulim-Navelim belt,” he asserted.
