Team Herald
CANACONA: The absence of public toilets over kilometres of stretches of national highway network in Goa and unable to control the urge to answer nature’s call, the commuters claim perpetual harassment from omnipresent trigger happy Goans who throw abuses and video shoot the sequence and upload it on social media.
Lakhs of vehicles ply daily on the Goan road networks which is divided into national highways, district and village roads. All these roads being built decades ago have no public toilet facilities. Long distance travellers especially those who travel from far off places like Canacona and Pernem, to towns like Margao and Panjim are the most affected as without any option they have to halt in the middle of their journeys and answer nature’s call.
Prabhakar Gaonkar a regular traveller who commutes on his two-wheeler from Canacona to Margao every day told this correspondent that there is no public toilet along the national highway. “I suffer from urinary disorder; with no option, I have to stop by the road side and urinate. Recently, a red swift car halted and a woman sitting on the rear seat directed the focus of her mobile camera towards me and started recording.”
“When confronted, the other co-occupant said that what I was doing was legally wrong. When I pointed out that they themselves have halted their vehicle in the middle of the road they just sped off,” he added.
A couple of months back a video of a brother of a powerful politician from South Goa was uploaded on social media while he was urinating in the bushes beside a road. While it was not a grave act, hundreds of abusive comments followed till the interest amongst those annoying activists died down.
Affected people feel that as long as the present legislations on cyber crime are weak, these confrontations and name calling on social media platforms might spill over to abuses and physical fights in the longer run.
Vishant Prabhu, a resident of Mashem in Canacona, said that it’s 60kms distance for people travelling from his village to Margao. Except at Chaudi, there is no public toilet facility by the road side till Margao and it is almost impossible to control the urge to pass urine for so long.
Prabhu suggested that the highway authorities should construct lavatories for every ten kilometre for the benefit of people suffering from diabetes and other urinary disorders, as they have to pass urine frequently.
An elderly person told this correspondent that Canacona has innumerable unexplained cases of kidney ailments; also, passing urine is a natural phenomenon; in the absence of lavatories people, will stand and urinate; if at all moral policing is required, then, it is for the garbage strewn all around Goa. “I urge the Goan paparazzi to use their time and energy to focus on issues more than urinating beside a road,” he suggested.
