MONDAY, JULY 08, 2024
AUGUSTO RODRIGUES
ASSAGAO: School going kids, locals, tourists and Assagao Village Panchayat are beginning to believe that the Public Works Department (PWD) is treating them with disdain as numerous pleas to repair the roads of various wards, before the rains, have fallen on deaf ears and the local body has threatened to approach the High Court of Bombay at Goa.
The situation is so grim that the Assagao Village Panchayat in its letter dated June 26, to the Principal Chief Engineer PWD stated: “You are hereby once again requested to look at once to the present situation of this village and give satisfactory relief to the villagers of Assagao from all the consequences/issues. If you fail, the Panchayat will take this matter into the High Court.”
“Even after eight meetings, many in which our MLA was involved, the PWD seems to care a damn about the problem being faced not just by the students needing to go to school, but the people in general. They keep assuring us that the matter will be solved, but the craters on the roads still remain,” fumed Assagao sarpanch Hanumant Naik.
The interior roads of Assagao are not negotiable with huge potholes and with the monsoons, the same are not visible thus increasing the danger to pedestrians and motorists.
“When taking my daughter to school, I run the risk of getting injured, not knowing where and how deep the pothole is, and my child’s uniform getting dirty with water splashed by vehicles. I hope they are not waiting for an accident to happen, to react,” says Sujata as she moves towards the Government Primary School in Munnag, Assagao to pick up her ward.
The problem , according to the sarpanch, is that the maintenance of the road was needed as the ‘nullah at one side was damaged by the Department of Electricity and the PWD damaged the cross drain by laying pipes that will lead to flooding and further destruction of the road during the next monsoon.”
“They should do the road in a manner that we do not need to keep having to break it open to clean the blocked drainage every monsoon. There has to be a viable solution to the problem,” said Naik.
“We have started work during the last two days, but cannot progress any further because of the incessant rains. We have to wait for the rains to stop to be able to make the roads serviceable,” explained Tanay Kandolkar, Junior Engineer of PWD in charge of maintenance of the road.
“We have to follow government procedures,” Kandolkar shot back when asked why PWD had to wait for the monsoons to start work.
The Assagao Panchayat had in a letter dated May 16, to Principal Engineer Uttam Parsekar highlighted four main points which showed lack of interaction and intent by departments towards giving the citizens a safe life.
“I really don’t know what has been written in the letter. Right now, I am busy at an inauguration and I will get back to you later,” Principal Engineer Uttam Parsekar Told O Heraldo. He did not get back till the time of going to the press.
“This is a typical case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. We humans are just guinea pigs and humans when it is the time to vote,” said Vinayak, who is losing his shop business as customers prefer to go somewhere else because of the bad road.
