MARGAO
They fought a bitter battle to score brownie points and to outwit each other in the game of one-upmanship at the launching of the road hot-mixing project at Comba last week.
Less than a kilometre away from the battlefield is the ring road, bordering Comba that was thrown open up for vehicular traffic by razing down houses of 13 Goan families to make way for the road. That the displaced families are still awaiting rehabilitation till date is an open secret.
What, however, has baffled many a traveller using the ring road, connecting the Colva road to Comba, is the absence of illumination of the entire road stretch, right up to the Comba subway, and the failure of the PWD and the powers that be to get the road illuminated.
In fact, it’s now two years since the PWD officials rushed with the opening of the ring road stretch from Colva road to the Comba subway, ostensibly to satisfy the High Court, which was monitoring the ring road construction. In the bargain, the PWD officials and the powers that be seemed to have completely forgotten the dire need to illuminate the road stretch, putting the travellers to great risk and leaving scope for garbage contractors to use the ring road as a waste dumping ground.
While outgoing PWD Executive Engineer, DIV VI, Agnelo Barros had told The Goan over a year ago that the ring road could not be illuminated for want of budgetary provision, his successor Prasad Panandikar only confirmed what his predecessor had said last year “ that the illumination work could not be taken up since there was no budgetary provision for the work.
Panandikar further told The Goan that he had recently discussed the matter with Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, stressing on the need to illuminate the Comba ring road stretch.
Questions are being raised in local circles whether the powers that be has not accorded priority for the ring road illumination since the road virtually falls in a no man’s land, with hardly voters residing along the way.
Otherwise, consider this. The Margao MLA had recently announced that he had taken up illumination of most of the junctions across the city, but why the ring road stretch has not found a mention on the agenda of the Margao MLA or his Fatorda counterpart, Vijai Sardesai has baffled the road users.
That the ring road comes as a perfect destination for youngsters to resort to public drinking and that unscrupulous waste collectors dump the waste alongside the road is an open secret, but the illumination of the ring road stretch is yet to see the light of day.
A regular road user pointed out that citizens will have no option than to knock the doors of the Judiciary if the PWD and the powers that be further delay in illuminating the road. “When the PWD officials acted with great haste to raze down people’s houses to make way for the ring road stretch, the officials invoked the name of the High Court to execute the work,” the road user remarked, demanding to know whether the PWD officials are now waiting for the High Court to intervene again to make the agency provide for the illumination.
