The damaged house after the wall of an adjacent house (with yellow plastic) collapsed.
Photo Credits: Manuel Vaz
OLD GOA
Two families had a lucky escape when one wall of a house collapsed on another house at Dhaktem Bhat-Mandur on Friday afternoon, causing both houses to sustain extensive damages.
According to the information available, the incident occurred at around 2.30 pm when the wall of the house belonging to Sandeep Naik collapsed and fell on the house of the Jhalmi family. As the wall collapsed on the house of Jhalmi family, a portion of their wall collapsed upon impact as also the roof of one side of the house.
Luckily, at the time of the incident, nobody was present within the area of the collapsed portion of both houses.
Speaking to The Goan, Naik informed that at the time of the incident, he along with his wife were present on the other side of the house and their two kids were in school. He said that his house was not safe for occupation and that his family would have to shift to some other place.
Regarding the house of Jhalmi, the second son Prathamesh informed that the occupants ran outside after hearing the wall from their neighbour's house collapse.
"As it is, I had shifted to Old Goa to stay on rent as we were aware of the danger the wall of our neighbour posed," Jhalmi said while also informing that the kitchen too was shifted to a safer place. "I had even complained to the panchayat about the unsafe wall of our neighbour and notices were issued to them," Jhalmi added.
Meanwhile, as a temporary measure, the panchayat has put plastic sheets to cover the areas of the collapsed portions of both houses so that there is protection from rain.
Sarpanch Prashant Naik stated that they had received some plastic sheets under the Disaster Management programme which have been used, and additional plastic sheets have been provided from the panchayat fund.
The panchayat also employed labourers to clear the debris from both houses, which will continue on Saturday.
Missing file
Naik said that he had applied for the Atal Asra Yojana in 2023 but he was told that the file had been lost.
"After that, I complained to the Vigilance Department following which inspection was done by officials from the Director of Panchayats. But after that, nothing happened and the file was also not found," Naik stated and informed that if he had received the Rs 1.5 lakh under the scheme then he would have repaired the wall of his house.
When questioned about the missing file, Mandur Sarpanch Prashant Naik blamed the previous staff of the Social Welfare Department stationed in the panchayat to process files under Atal Asra Yojana.
"And this is not the first incident of missing files. The file of another person under the same scheme was also misplaced during the same period," Naik said.
MLA seeks quick release of funds
St Andre MLA Viresh Borkar, who visited Dhaktem Bhat-Mandur to take stock of the situation, has demanded that the government disburse funds on an urgent basis to those who have suffered damages to their houses due to such natural disasters.
"There is considerable delay in processing the files and the families suffer as they are not in a position to repair the houses on their own due to weak financial status," Borkar informed.
"Currently, it is a very lengthy process which needs to be curtailed so that affected families get immediate relief under Disaster Management," Borkar said.
However, the MLA thanked North Goa Collector Sneha Gitte for clearing files from his constituency, which had been pending for a long period. "Gitte has cleared many files from my constituency on an urgent basis and I am hopeful that in this instance also, the funds would be released quickly," Borkar added.
