Goa’s about amazing drives, good scenery and lots to watch while you’re on the move, especially the water bodies, trees, birds, green fields, small hillocks with a tiny place of worship usually sticking out of the green or just the beach in the distance. Let’s pick a location to admire Goa’s beauty irrespective of the mode of transport.
Currently, if you drive across Verna to Bambolim, in the news is the bridge across the River Zuari, a 14-kilometre eight-lane Zuari bridge which is under construction and will have an added special feature of revolving tower.
Drive towards the port town and there’s already a flyover shaping up at Baina, a loop ramp construction to commence on F L Gomes road at Vasco and also two flyovers under construction for crossing besides the airport, not to forget the new taxiway under construction at the airport in Dabolim.
In case you chose the borders of Goa then there’s GMR working on the plains of Mopa to build Goa’s new airport. While in Canacona, the highway expansion works are on, the Galgibaga-Talpona bridge is taking shape, rail freight corridor work is under completion at Balli railway station which is a facility spread over 81,300 square metres amounting to Rs 43 crore known as a Multi Modal Logistics Park.
While train journeys to South India reveal the double tracking work at Chandor, Sao Jose de Areal, Sanguem, Paroda, Sanvordem and Curchorem cutting through the forests and hills, retaining walls being built, bridges being razed and raised and water bodies are diverted.
And in Panjim, we’re a few months away from inaugurating the third Mandovi bridge pegged at Rs 860 crore of which Rs 462 crore was sanctioned by NABARD and recently the central government gave an in-principle approval for a grant of Rs 450 crore. Keeping fingers crossed that there won’t be a further price escalation.
And a drive from Loutolim to Cortalim reveals mammoth sized pillars piled into the hills of Verna and through the fields of Loutolim heading towards Ponda which is a Rs 291-crore project of a bypass road and missing link connecting Ponda to Verna Industrial Estate executed by MVR constructions. NG-Tarmat has chiseled a Rs 250 crore Western Bypass connecting Nuvem to Navelim, skipping Margao town which is under construction and will be completed by 2019. While the roads through Saligao, Sancoale and Calangute have all undergone road widening and the coastal belt of Benaulim to Cavelossim had its fair share of development and road works thanks to a BRICS Summit.
Not to give you an overload of numbers, statistics and the crores being spent in Goa, neither an article to highlight the government’s works and projects underway but sometimes we may wonder all this is for whom? Let’s also not comment on the coal corridor or the ripped hills of iron ore mining in Goa but this entire infrastructure is going to be utilised for a good three decades and beyond.
The only question that remains unanswered is what will be the view from this infrastructure? Will this statement be able to come alive as time goes ticking and will we still say, “Goa’s about amazing drives, good scenery and lots to watch while you’re on the move, especially the water bodies, trees, birds, green fields, small hillocks with a tiny place of worship usually sticking out of the green or just the beach in the distance.”
It’s time to question development and it’s time to restore our environment before we gift it too few others tomorrow. There’s definitely an environmental impact that is visible around us, and we need to burn a desire, to slowly retrieve a lot back that is lost to these constructions. It’s a welcome move that the NHAI has sanctioned Rs 60 crore for planting saplings along Goa’s highways, but can we plant a free sapling for Goa from each of our hands?
