Its 6am in the morning and traffic is already building up on the NH17 highway, cars are snarling and the cops are arriving. It’s pouring heavily and in the low visibility, we tend to notice an approaching 108 Ambulance. It’s quite evident that a father on his scooter with two kids on the kid has lost control when his bike hit the earth in a huge crater like pothole.
The traffic eases the ambulance and cops leave and so does the father with his 8-year old son and 6-year old daughter, all safe but with a lot of gashes and bruises, attended to and all tapped by the ambulance.
Croydon Medeira, a gulf returned Goan who spends his time as an activist, questions through his Facebook page, whether the politicians especially the MLAs who posed along the hot mix vehicle and broken coconuts, are willing to pose with the potholes and send it out on Facebook and other social media forums.
The potholes are Goa’s menace right now. Be it the recently tarred road near Quepem market, or the main town area in Mapusa, the road along the garden in Margao or Panjim road along the bus stand or even worse the roads in Benaulim, Porvorim, Sanvordem and even Baga and Candolim, are all washed out by just 60 inches of rainfall as about July 07, 2016. Even worse these rods were all hotmixed a few months back and marked with radium but now it’s more puddles and potholes and less road.
It’s so badly planned. The storm water drains are built, then some concrete shoulders are built, then someone breaks the road for laying an electricity department high tension line and then after it’s fixed, there’s a new sewerage line laid and then some water pipeline upgrade and then some private inter operators come and mend their lines which are ripped by an excavator and so they join the road digging. In the midst of all this, the asphalt is of such cheap and substandard quality and the roads are a mess. There’s nothing to say, the experience is for all commuters every day and people are getting hurt, injured, life’s are lost, explains Jhonny Carvalho from Chinchinim who takes time out of his business to drop and pick his kids to school in Margao.
Another incident that jolted Xaxtikars is the death of one Sarfraz who owns Margao’s oldest and most well-known graphic designing outlets where every biker would visit ‘Pasting Ideas’ to get their fix of logos and designs for their vehicles. Sarfraz recently died in an accident where was knocked down by a bus on the highway. But deaths of young Sarfraz who died at 34 years of age and many other debates opens up the debate of what our government offers us as roadways and infrastructure for the taxes we pay and levied.
People are taking stone and debris and filling up potholes in most parts of South Goa themselves because the PWD is not addressing the bad roads situation in any part of Goa. “My neck is hurting and I am advised a brace for my neck. The bounding of the head in a helmet of the bad roads I commute across Ponda has led to this situation. The government talks of road widening and filling fields from Galgibag to Pernem and across Ponda and Loutolim but if they can’t manage the existing roads, then why get into this kind of development. We can’t do with small rods but fix them is my only plea to this government, asserted an angry Dilip Wagle who hails in Cortalim.
While Nilesh Borde writes on Movement against potholes, for safety of life, a robust group on Facebook. Nilesh Borde explains that Goa’s ek Sadak app addresses the bad roads situation wherein pictures of the bad road and location needs to be uploaded on the app and the Government of India’s Roadways Ministry looks into these queries with the respective PWD’s but people who have used the app say that there has been no respite nor solution.
