23 Jan 2022  |   07:24am IST

Criminal damage to water pipeline, while laying the 11KVA line in Panjim

Typical case of one dept digging at will to destroy pipelines laid by another; Destroyed water pipelines will cause severe loss to the exchequer

Team Herald

PANJIM: Unsupervised and uncoordinated work is not only causing havoc and disrupting the lives of citizens on a regular basis, but causing severe loss to the exchequer, which thrives on citizens’ taxes.

On Saturday, an excavator was employed by a contractor to dig up the road near Pinto Chambers, off 18th June Road, Panjim for laying a 11KVA underground electricity line. However, the Assistant Engineer Works Division II under whose jurisdiction the work was being executed was nowhere in site. Neither was any engineer deputed by him.

After the trench was dug by using the excavator, one of the labourers deliberately took a pickaxe and damaged a water pipeline going into Pinto Chamber, thus cutting off the line leading to 12 flats in the apartment block.

An alert citizen Dion Menezes on seeing the labourer criminally damaging the water line, rushed to the site and alerted and questioned the supervisor about the most irresponsible manner of digging the road. The supervisor sheepishly apologized and said the pipeline was damaged by mistake.

Dion Menezes recounted that citizens and city services are left to the mercy of the contractor whenever any road digging is done. A newly laid carpet off 18th June Road, near Pinto Chambers has been ‘scarred’ several times, he stated.

Dion lamented the lack of supervision by the Assistant Engineer Works Division II and the poor coordination between department such as the Electricity Department, the PWD (Water Supply) and the CCP. The same is the case with many other projects with many Smart City projects, forcing one to question the usage of the work ‘smart’ in the Smart City nomenclature.

The twelve flats at Pinto Chamber will have to go without water, on the weekend, if the pipeline was not repaired, on Saturday itself, he recounted. Dion also wryly commented that after such shoddy supervision by govt departments, the CM has the gall to say, “Bhivpachi garaz nam.”

At the time of going to press it wasn’t known if  the damaged pipelines have been repaired.