A hearse van used for evacuating residents

TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: This should serve as an eye opener to the disaster management authority to tone up its machinery to face disasters and natural calamities.
A week after floods affected the Sanvorcotto area of Cuncolim town, it has now come to light that the Cuncolim Municipal Council’s hearse van came in handy for the authorities to help rescue marooned people. That’s not all. Though the district authorities had identified as many as four different parties in Cuncolim owning JCB machines, the earth moving machinery could not be put to use for want of operators.
Sources informed that the local authorities had to use the municipal hearse van after flood water steadily started rising. There was no other vehicle which could operate on the inundated roads and evacuate people.
Says Cuncolim Municipal Chairperson, Devendra Desai: “There was no machinery nor manpower provided by the disaster management agency. We had to use the hearse van to evacuate people for want of any other vehicle available at that time.”
On the question of JCB machines, he said that though the authorities had identified four parties from Cuncolim owning JCBs, the machinery could not be put to use for want of operators.
The CMC Chairperson said the Cuncolim episode should act as lesson for the district authorities to tone up the disaster management machinery. “Finally, when the JCBs were not forthcoming, we contacted the industrialists from the Cuncolim Industrial Estate, who made available their heavy earth moving machinery without any hassles,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Cuncolim civic body has dashed off a letter to the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) to pay full compensation to the affected people of Sanvorcotto. The letter has warned that the civic body will be forced to lodge a complaint if the agency ignores the demand of the people for       full compensation.