MARGAO
With the bitter past experience when trucks load of mud was dumped for land filling to pave way for the western bypass passing through the village, Seraulim villagers have decided to maintain vigil to ensure the bypass contractor does not start land filling of the low lying areas of the village for the proposed bypass.
Village Sarpanch Domingos is believed to have called up Benaulim MLA Churchill Alemao on Thursday after reports did the rounds in the village that trucks load of mud have been dumped along the bypass alignment.
The Benaulim MLA, who is presently holed up at Vailankanni, Tamil Nadu, is believed to have immediately called up the Executive Engineer, National Highways and cautioned not to test the patience of the people on the contentious issue.
He is further believed to have told the senior PWD official that prudence demands that the PWD as well as the contractor do not start work of land filling when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar is seized of the matter and has promised to soon unveil designs of the small concrete bridges to ease water flow in the flood plains of River Sal.
"I do not know whether the PWD had started work on the bypass at Seraulim close to Nuvem border. But, one thing is clear that the PWD and the contractor should not stop the work till the Chief Minister comes out with a solution," Churchill told The Goan.
Village Sarpanch Domingos Fernandes said that locals are of the opinion that the contractor has dumped trucks load of mud along the bypass stretch in the village bordering Nuvem. "We the villagers of Seraulim have now decided to maintain vigil to ensure that no land filling takes place on the Seraulim stretch of the bypass," Domingo said. The village sarpanch along with panch members had met the Chief Minister, TCP Minister and MLAs Churchill Alemao and Luizinho Faleiro when they had come for inspection of the bypass at Seraulim.
Seraulim is one village which had adopted a host of resolutions demanding construction of the bypass on stilts. Agitated villagers had in the past protested against land filling in the low lying areas of the village to pave way for the bypass, with the villagers even making the contractor remove mud and silt blocking the traditional water streams.
While the PWD, NH-17 has laid the ground work for the western bypass on the Nuvem stretch, work has not commenced along the 3.5 km Seraulim-Mungul-Benaulim stretch, with the concerned villagers, the elected representatives, besides the contractor and PWD officials now waiting for the Chief Minister to unveil his solution with people demanding the bypass on stilts.
