Team Herald
PONDA: Following the Herald report on the unsafe Kavlem- Khadpabandh road in its Tuesday edition, the authorities closed the road to traffic by digging a trench on one end and by dumping heaps of mud on the other end of the road. However, no sign boards have been installed to alert locals about the road closure.
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As highlighted in the report, this muddy, uneven stretch was full of craters and local residents have been demanding that the road be repaired or closed to traffic. The road has now been obstructed overnight, but in the absence of signboards, locals say they do not know which authority has closed it.
Sources from the Ponda Municipal Council said that the Kavlem-Khadpaband road does not exist on the Ponda Outline Development Plan (ODP) and at this point, it is just a dead end to the Khadpabandh road.
This stretch, which has earlier been closed by the PMC on several occasions, has had its share of controversy. The villagers residing in the Kavlem and Bandora panchayats are in favour of this road as they use it as a shortcut to Ponda town.
A few years ago, Power Minister Ramakrishna Dhavlikar had remarked that this mud road exists as the PWD had acquired the land for the Kavlem-
Khadpabandh Road, but some people had encroached the acquired land with buildings.
Though the road was in use, it was riddled with potholes at the connecting point to the National Highway junction at Dhavlim-Farmagudi and several accidents took place at the junction due to the lack of an underpass or an alternate arrangement for vehicles to safely cross the Kavlem-Khadpabandh road.
