PANJIM: Hundreds of Calangute villagers, with support of the panchayat, held demonstrations and rally in protest against the bad conditions of roads in the village on Thursday.
The protest rally was led by Sarpanch Anny Fernandes and acting sarpanch Joseph Sequeira. The protestors criticised the government and PWD for taking Calngutkars for a “bumpy” ride.
However, a call for a bandh was withdrawn after the authorities began repairs.
“This is just an awakening call to the BJP-led government that the people of Calangute cannot be taken for granted,” Sequeira said and complained that roads have been dug up and left for years unrepaired.
“When the sewerage work was started, the then chief minister Manohar Parrikar told me that there would be no digging and it would be done by surface drilling; but here it is large-scale digging,” he said.
He stated that not only locals even the tourists are upset with the conditions of roads and as a result, the occupancy in hotels has reduced to just 30 to 40 per cent.
He blamed PWD Minister Sudin Dhavalikar for the bad condition of roads in the village.
“Dhavalikar has always ignored Calangute,” he charged.
When pointed out that the repair work has already been started in some parts, he said, “It is just a make-up.”
“They knew that locals would protest, so they just started patch-up at some places,” he said adding, “we are giving the government one month’s time to repair the roads, and if they fail to restore roads, we will have a complete bandh on Oct 2.”
Calangute MLA Michael Lobo said the protest was politically motivated.
“The digging has been done for the betterment of Calangute. The sewerage network is need of the hour and I am glad that we have been able to achieve it during my tenure,” Lobo told Herald.
He said the roads would be restored to original position with double hot-mixing by October end.
“We have already begun the work on repairs and by tomorrow all patch-work would be completed and the hot mixing would be taken up in October,” he stated.
