the goan I network
MARGAO
Doesn’t really seems so. For, sewage water has made its its presence felt in the hospital basement “ which is supposed to house crucial utilities, including the central store, drug store, pharmacy besides vehicular parking.
Questions have been raised in certain quarters whether the hospital would have been commissioned by the government without first tackling the sewage flow into the basement or without making alternate provision for the central and drug store, pharmacy or parking.
Take note that GSIDC officials are on the job to plug the sewage water seepage into the basement, but the problem is not easy as it looks, owing to the high water table around the site and the underground sewage line that is lies damaged and is redundant for quite some time. The problem has been further aggravated by the fact that both Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) constructing the hospital and PWD manning the sewage line have been at loggerheads ever since the construction of the hospital project was taken up a couple of years ago. That’s not all. The GSIDC has no say in respect of the damaged sewerage line, and the rehabilitation of the line by the PWD is expected to be an expensive affair, with the rehabilitation of the entire 12-km line pegged at a whopping Rs 80-plus crore.
While GSIDC has managed to stop the flow of sewage water into the basement through the ground, water seepage through the sideways is literally the order of the day.
Questions have been raised whether the consultant or GSIDC did not factor the ground conditions at the site before construction of the hospital project got underway over half a decade ago. For, it is an open secret that water from the north main underground sewerage line passing behind the hospital project has been gushing out into the nullah almost round the year for want of rehabilitation of the damaged line.
Taken aback by the ground reality, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai told GSIDC officials that this is one issue which cannot be resolved at the level of the health services or GSIDC, but needs cabinet approval for the rehabilitation and replacement of the underground sewerage line.
“It is shocking to see that sewerage water is flooding the district hospital basement. The only solution to the problem lies in the replacement of the damaged line with a new line,” he said.
The cost of the new underground sewerage line is put at a whopping Rs 80-plus crore, while the district hospital project has till date touched the Rs 100 crore mark.
Even as both the Health and the TCP Ministers have planned to take up the issue with Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar to resolve the imbroglio, questions did the rounds in the city whether the basement flooding issue had escaped the attention of the previous regime when it had announced plans to commission the district hospital by December 2016.
