AUGUSTO RODRIGUES
CUTBONA, VELIM: The picture of dengue and cholera may not hang heavy these days. But the stench of filth and faeces is a foreboding that disease always lurks in the corner- nay it permanently docks in Cutbona, a jetty whose middle name is controversy, wrapped in a cloud of administrative neglect.
To start with, locals are upset that they cannot cultivate their fields that are used for defecation. “This is the time of the year when we plant our Rabi crop and melons, but we cannot enter the fields because they are stink pots,” an angry Eddy Colaco from the village, laments.
“I admit the jetty still stinks but it is not as bad as when the Chief Minister had visited. There are no cases of cholera and reports of dengue have decreased. I see fewer people going to the fields,” admitted Veena Cardozo, Sarpanch of Velim.
Forty-eight trucks were parked on the road leading to the jetty and 18 mobile toilets were lined along the jetty for the workers to use. However, the habit of using the fields is still preferred.
“We are not used to those (mobile urinals) boxes. We are used to doing it in the open, whilst it is congested inside those boxes,” says Harijan as he walks back to the jetty.
Despite the use of artificial water sprinklers, the stink is prevalent in the jetty in the evening. Twenty-two odd unused or unkempt trawlers are seen lying on one end. At the entrance of the jetty sits Lavkush Malik, Fisheries Surveyor (FS) of the Department of Fisheries.
“The government has laid the foundation stone for a toilet with the capacity to accommodate 50 individuals at a time. We expect the workers to start using those toilets,” hoped Lavkush after his attention was drawn to the non-usage of the mobile toilets.
The farmers of the area have another stumbling block hindering their cultivation. “Indiscriminate land filling has blocked the flow of our water bodies which are used for Rabi cultivation. The water bodies get stagnant and turn into pools for mosquitoes,” argues Alvito Fernandes, another villager.
“Illegal structures come up at places where water bodies are illegally filled and the whole demography of the place changes for the worse,” interjects Florian D’Cruz.
“The owner of the structure got the conversion and permission to build from the TCP. The Panchayat has nothing to do with it,” clarified sarpanch Cardoso.
The only silver lining is that the dengue and cholera cases are down, but the open invitation to disease, with so much filth around, is alarming.
“I do not have the exact number of dengue cases at hand, but they are down. An SOP has been prepared and given to the Department of Fisheries and the boat owners to follow,” maintained Dr Kalpana Mahatme, Deputy Director of National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme.
“It is difficult to say that acute diarrhoea is gone but the outbreak of cholera has been contained. Cleanliness is the watchword at the jetty and around,” asserted Dr Utkarsh Betodkar, State Epidemiologist.