Maintain that two-wheelers use the pathway close to their houses to get on to the abandoned road, thus affecting their daily chores
TEAM HEALD
MARGAO: Like many a Madgavkar, these residents of Comba, inhabiting the houses near the subway, are also looking at the government to complete the long-delayed ring-road project.
But their reason seems different. Ever since local MLA Digambar Kamat inaugurated the Madel-Comba stretch of the ring road couple of months ago, life has not been the same for these hapless residents. While the government is yet to rehabilitate or compensate the inhabitants of the 9 to 12 houses with plots, they have to be content with two-wheeler traffic along a narrow pathway ~ connecting the ring road to the Comba subway.
Residents claim that traffic passes right through their courtyard, leaving slabs on the storm water drain damaged, and posing danger to their children playing around. They have made an impassioned plea to the government to rehabilitate them and complete the ring road at the earliest.
Says a senior citizen, Parmati Sawardekar: “We have not objected to the ring road project. What we have been asking the government to rehabilitate them somewhere else and complete the project. Right now, they have left the incomplete ring road at our backyard. People have already started using the road through the narrow pathway. We don’t want money, but the government should give us alternate houses.”
Guruprasad Borkar echoed similar sentiments. “The ring road has been left abandoned behind our houses. The small pathway has come in handy for two-wheelers to make it to the Comba side. The traffic has affected our daily chores. The government should accord top priority for our rehabilitation and completion of the project,” he said.
Incidentally, when Herald contacted Margao MLA Digambar Kamat to throw light on the incomplete Madel-Comba stretch of the ring road, he said that the process on the allotment of plots to the 12 families is underway. “When the government had acquired land for the ring road project, land was also acquired for the rehabilitation of the 12 families. I had reviewed the progress of work on the ring road. The PWD is in the process of submitting the file of the proposed plots to the Town and Country Planning Department for approval. No sooner, the file returns back, the affected residents will be allotted plots,” Kamat said.
Margao’s ambitious ring road project ~ which was mooted in the late 70s to ease traffic congestion in the commercial capital ~ had been moving at a snail’s pace over the last three decades. Presently, the stretch of the Aquem Power House to Apollo Victor Hospital via Margao railway station stands complete, while work on the Margao flyover to Pedda stretch is yet to take off till date.
