JULIO S’SILVA
The State government has approved widening of the National Highway at Saipem Lake in Navelim on stilts. However, the same has to be approved by the Ministry of Surface Transport at the Centre which is yet to give its nod to the revised proposal.
The road on stilts at Saipem Lake will be about 860 mts long and will cost around Rs 70 crore and that is why it needs the Centre’s approval. It may be recalled that the widening of the National Highway from Verna to Dramapur was estimated to cost around Rs 425 crore.
Navelim residents had objected to constructing a bundh at Saipem Lake for the road widening on grounds that it would damage the lake that is sought to be revived after many years of neglect. In fact the previous Navelim MLA Avertano Furtado had taken up restoration of Saipem Lake which was his main agenda and had initiated a lot of work to protect the lake.
Besides demanding the road on stilts at Saipem Lake, the villagers had also demanded construction of an underpass at Coldem that comes under the jurisdiction of the Telaulim Village Panchayat. In fact the Telaulim gram sabha has discussed this issue twice and demanded an underpass to enable people from Telaulim to move to Navelim safely across the national highway.
Superintendent Engineer in charge of National Highways V P Verenker said that the underpass is under the active consideration of the government. Navelim MLA Luizinho Faleiro revealed that the government is also considering construction of a low level road.
“The underpass is not coming cheap and is expected to increase the cost of the project by another Rs 60 crores that is why the low level road is being considered as an alternative,” said Luizinho.
Residents of Benaulim are also demanding the stretch of the highway from Colva road to Sinquetim which is around 3 kms be also constructed on stilts as otherwise it will adversely affect the River Sal that is adjacent to the new widened highway.
However, the government is yet to decide on this as Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has just started meeting people and initiated discussion on this project. “We have not prepared any plans or estimates of the road on stilts in Benaulim constituency as the government is yet to decide upon the matter,” said Mr. Verenker.
Irrespective of what the government decided upon the underpass and road on stilts in Benaulim, the Centre has to first give its approval to the road on stilts at Saipem lake and no work can start until that is done.
“We cannot tell how long will the construction of road on stilts at Saipem take for the simple reason that it has to be first approved by centre,” said Verenker.
