MARGAO
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had on December 23 inaugurated the 11-km Rs 482 crore western bypass for traffic in the presence of Salcete lone Minister Aleixo Sequeira, Margao MLA Digambar Kamat and Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai and others.
Around 22 days down the line, traffic sign boards directing national highway traffic to take the highway are still to fall in place at the Belem-Navelim traffic junction till date.
While the traffic signals at the Belem junction have been made functional, the absence of traffic sign boards at the junction seemed to have caused confusion in the minds of the heavy duty drivers on the National highway, with heavy traffic still entering Navelim village to take the Eastern bypass at Rawanfond.
In fact, a traffic sign board stating that service road starts at the junction continues to welcome motorists when the traffic sign board ought to have directed motorists to take the bypass at the junction.
When The Goan contacted a senior PWD, National Highway official to shed light on the delay in erecting traffic sign boards at the Belem and other junctions, the official was quick to reply that the department has told the contractor to install the traffic sign boards at the earliest. “It may be true that highway traffic continues to ply through Navelim to head to Ponda or Panjim. All these issues will be resolved once the traffic sign boards are put in place by the contractor”, the official added.
