SURAJ NANDREKAR
suraj@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: Strange are the ways of this government’s functioning. While some projects get completed, sometimes even without proper acquisition of land, others are left incomplete for no valid reasons.
For the last five years, the Chimbel flyover on the four-lane Kadamba highway, which is needed due to frequent accidents, has been left incomplete.
The ambitious four-laning of the Panjim-Old Goa bypass corridor project, taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 280 cr, is yet to be completed due to pending construction of the flyover near Chimbel-Ribandar junction since 2014.
Officials of Venkatrao Infrastructure Limited informed Herald that the work is not complete due to the land acquisition which is pending for the last two years.
Investigations revealed that the government has no plans to go ahead with the project as it is under litigation. On inquiring further it was understood that two individuals have moved the High Court challenging the land acquisition.
After laying the piers on one side of the junction, spending crores of rupees, PWD now wants to rework the project. “We have sent a detailed proposal with estimates to the central government and we have been told the project has been sanctioned by NHAI,” PWD Chief Engineer Vijaykumar Verenkar told Herald.
Asked why the project was abandoned after spending several crores of the exchequer money, he said, “The project is under litigation and hence we cannot move ahead and we decided to redo the entire project.”
Questioned what would be the new alignment for the project, he replied, “That is still under process. But one thing is for sure, the current project cannot go ahead due to various reasons.”
In April 2015, PWD Minister Ramkrishna (Sudin) Dhavalikar had assured in the Legislative Assembly that work on the model corridor, which includes this flyover, would be completed in May 2016.
Only three pillars have been erected so far by the contractor at the construction site. The actual work of construction of pillars for the flyover commenced in 2015.
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Intersection an accident-prone zone
With the new smooth and straight road from Old Goa to Panjim most of the vehicular traffic has been diverted through this route but speeding vehicles on the road has become a cause of concern for residents.
Moreover, the Chimbel-Ribandar junction has turned into a major accident prone zone. It is at this junction that a bottleneck occurs daily.
“It is a very scary situation at the junction. Speeding vehicles coming from Kadamba plateau have to suddenly apply the brakes. The problem is with drivers of heavy vehicles who face a tough time to control their vehicles at this junction,” Samrat Chimulkar, a local said.
Another resident from Chimbel, Sandesh Naik, said that often at night vehicles are seen going off the road after losing control at the junction.
