As lives are snuffed out, wounding grieving families for life, there’s no one who steps up to make this killer road safe
GUILHERME ALMEIDA
When the government took up the ambitious widening and four-laning of the 6.6 km Arlem-Borim road over half-a-decade ago, the objective was to streamline the heavy traffic flow on the Margao-Ponda state highway and reduce the accidents along the narrow road.
But as yet another, funeral procession got underway, this time of the 14 year old Neomi Dias, crushed by a speeding truck, the killer road had made yet another announcement.
And each deathly announcement signals the abject failure of the authorities to rectify the flaws in road engineering. The sharp turns along the route, especially at the Raia junction, Uzro, Tembi and Ambora have virtually become accident prone zones. When Herald asked a PWD official the reason behind the delay in rectifying the dangerous Uzro turn, he was quick to reply that additional land needs to be acquired to develop the turn. The accident prone turn at Tembi has also been neglected. A dilapidated structure stands right alongside the turn, blocking clear visibility. Local activists pointed out that the four-lane road has literally narrowed down to a single lane near the Tembi turn, as they blame the authorities for turning a blind eye to the encroachments along the stretch.
That’s not all. Motorists complain of an uneven and bumpy road surface all along the stretch from Arlem to Ambora. The PWD, in turn, is pointing accusing fingers at the electricity and water supply departments for the road condition. They maintained that the road has settled down at many places due to shifting of the public utilities after the tarring. Motorists are unlikely to get any respite from the bumpy road at least for the next one year since hot mixing of the road is now expected to take place only after completion of the ongoing JICA funded water pipeline work.
Camurlim villager, Jesus Romao said that encroachments from the government acquired property have not been cleared for over two years. “We have been pleading with authorities to rectify the technical flaws and clear the encroachments from the acquired property. The four-lane road must have already claimed the lives of 25-30 people since opened. Is the PWD waiting for more deaths to occur to initiate action”, Romao asked.
Xavier Fernandes, a resident of Raia said that apart from the fatal accidents, the Arlem-Borim road has witnessed dozens of minor and major accidents over the last four years, many of them that have gone unreported at the police station.
Last year, aggrieved villagers met PWD Minister, Sudin Dhavlikar as the accident rate showed no signs of abating. “The PWD minister promised immediate action, but the ground reality remains unchanged”, lamented Camurlim panch Inacio Antao.
The residents had taken up the issue with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar during his visit to Raia, but his promise to personally inspect the road and clear the road engineering defects has not changed the ground situation.
Incidentally, the PWD has completed only 4.4 km of the road, while work on four-laning of phase III of the ambitious project, connecting Ambora to Borim is yet to take off till date. PWD says the land acquisition officer had pronounced the award, but the department has not yet taken possession of the land.
