ASSAGAO: Tension prevailed at Santa Vaddo, Assagao, on Monday afternoon, after villagers gathered at the site after observing a hotel discharging its sewage openly on the main road. Locals confronted the said hotel staff and sought that the hotel be sealed till a permanent solution was not found.
Police were later called to the site and the situation was brought under control.
Locals from Assagao, were angered after they saw that the hotel at Saunta Waddo was discharging its sewage water onto the road. They were also agitated over the fact that on the stretch of 200 metres as there are about 8 hotels and except for one or two hotels, most of them have no parking space and many vehicles are parked on the road, which causes accidents. Just last week one local broke his shoulder right in front of this hotel after he was hit by a speeding car.
The issue of sewage being left out on the roads has figured at various gram sabha meetings. “We the people of Assagao seem to have been taken for a ride –sewage being let out onto the roads, parking on the roads, accidents galore….there does not seem to be any law and order in Assagao. This village seems to have turned into a banana republic,” Evaristo Nobres, a villager rued.
Another local Shivaji Gaad informed that this is the third instance of a hotel letting out its sewage on the road and a new culture has crept in, of hotels deploying bouncers who then threaten people and chase them away. “We have been fighting at gram sabha meetings. The minutes are there for people to check – regular traffic mess, accidents and now sewage let out onto the roads. Where is Assagao heading?” Gaad questioned.
Meanwhile, when contacted, the restaurant manager of one hotel, Sunil Vijan, said that the hotel management is in the process of installing an effluent treatment plant (ETP) and though they are fully conversant with the hardships being caused they are also in the process of rectifying it within the next two or three weeks as the plant has to be brought and installed.
Assagao Sarpanch Hanumant Naik told O Heraldo that whenever such matters are brought to the notice of the panchayat, notices are immediately issued for site inspection through the health department and the village sanitation committee. “As per the Goa Public Health Act, the health department is duty bound to disconnect power and water if violations are noticed, but somewhere the sanitary inspector of Siolim health centre seems to lack knowledge of the rules. We conduct inspections, but no action is taken and the inspector says no sewage was seen and the matter is closed without any action.”
This happens quite often and the locals hold us responsible, when in fact it is the health department that must act,” the sarpanch said.
Naik also said that as this sewage situation was appearing to get worse with three such cases being witnessed in the village, the panchayat was looking at other possible options, such as revoking occupancy certificates, if such an action is in accordance with the Goa Panchayat Raj Act.
