SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2024
Goa has been shaken with a series of mishaps throughout this year. On Tuesday, another mishap occurred, which wrenched the hearts of many. People were out and about in the morning at Navelim junction on their way to work. Things were fine until a tree branch fell on the road and took with it the life of a mother who was dropping her daughter off to school on her two-wheeler.
The incident was captured on a CCTV camera installed in the premises and the video of the heartbreaking mishap quickly went viral on social media platforms. Despite no fault of theirs, the mother lost her life while the daughter is fighting for hers in the hospital. The government is to be blamed for this untoward incident as it’s their negligence which has cost someone their life. If the authorities concerned had cut the tree on time then this death could have been avoided. There have been similar incidents on the same road which have injured many people but the authorities continue to turn a nelsons’ eye.
Pre-monsoon works such as cutting down the branches which lean onto the road and clearing the gutters are mandatory. This is done to ensure timely drainage of the monsoon water and to avoid potential accidents. However, many trees and similar obstacles are left unattended at many places which then lead to mishaps. When asked why certain dangerous trees are not chopped down, the workers who are pressed into the service seem clueless and say that they were not ordered to trim down the tree.
There are trees dangerously standing on the sides of the roads while climbing up the Altinho hillock. In fact, there are trees which need to be trimmed down while going from Panjim Church to the Chief Minister’s residence. The situation isn’t very different when one travels from Mala area to Circuit House via Maruti Mandir. The trees fall on these roads during every monsoon but fortunately, it happens to be either during wee hours or late nights when traffic is almost non-existent. However, that doesn’t mean that the authorities should go into hibernation mode during monsoon like frogs do during winter.
A few years ago, a tree near Mahalakshmi temple in Panjim had collapsed on a car crushing an occupant inside to death. The people then had held the government on the edge as such negligence was a matter of concern given Panjim is the State’s capital city. Apart from trees, potholes are another major issue of concern for not only motorists but also pedestrians. There is a huge pothole right at the beginning of the slope while travelling towards the Chief Minister’s residence at Altinho. Not to say that the regional police have not put a barricade in front of the pothole to warn motorists, but that is simply not enough. And in fact, it is just a lethargic way of dealing with the real problems. If one was to misplace the barricade it’d certainly lead to a mishap. This, and innumerable such potholes all across the State, needs to be repaired properly. If this is the situation of the road that leads to the residence of the Chief Minister, one can imagine the state of the other roads. The trees on the side of the roads is not an issue that is restricted only to Panjim or Navelim-Margao; the entire State is riddled with such trees. The government should immediately undertake the survey to locate these trees and trim them down to avoid future accidents. Let us hope that we shall see this lucky day sometime soon.
