BASURI DESAI
basuri@herald-goa.com
The Dona Paula to Miramar stretch which has been under renovation for more than a year now will be a huge obstacle to guests and delegates attending the International Film Festival of India (IFFI).
Most of the guests attending the 10 day event are accommodated at starred hotels in Dona Paula. Besides, at least two of the functions are organized at the Dona Paula jetty. Due to the road being under construction, most of the traffic is being diverted through the Old Governor’s road through the village of Caranzalem, which at present cannot properly handle regular vehicular traffic. During the IFFI period, this will culminate into a mess and put villagers of Caranzalem through extreme discomfort.
The work to renovate the infamous stretch started more than a year ago and Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar even intervened and assured the public that this work would be completed by the end of this year.
However, during this crucial time period, when traffic on this stretch will increase tremendously, the road will have a lot of trouble accommodating all of it. Thousands of national, as well as international film lovers, critics, film makers, actors etc, attend this festival yearly. It is very unfortunate that roads such as this will be presented to them.
The Deputy Superintendent of Police of the Traffic Cell of North Goa, Dharmesh Angle has assured that there won’t be any bottle necks anywhere on the Miramar-Dona Paula road. He also went on to inform that steps are being taken to ensure that the stretch is repaired before the starts of the IFFI.
“My first piece of action would be to depute staff at the problematic spots so that some sort of management can be done. There won’t be diversions or any problems to the regular vehicular movement. I will make sure that there will be extra staff at major junctions during the IFFI,” Angle told Herald.
The Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG) which is looking after the entire organization of the film festival has asked the concerned authorities to undertake the repair work on the existing old road. Damodar Naik, chairman of the ESG said, “I have given orders to the concerned departments to repair the road before the commencement of IFFI. I organized a meeting with everyone concerned last Thursday and it has been decided that suitable diversions will be put in place in areas where the traffic load gets too cumbersome in order to maintain smooth traffic flow.”
Residents of Caranzalem and the neighbouring Taleigao have been demanding the immediate repair of this road for a couple of months now but nothing has been done so far. The local BJP leader, Dattaprasad Naik has also demanded the dismissal of current PWD minister, Sudin Dhavalikar from the Parsekar cabinet over the failure to provide a proper road network to the residents of Taleigao and Caranzalem.
