Friday, July 1, 2016, the suburb of Borda in Margao which is originally known for its old Portuguese houses and also its increasing concrete buildings, trended all over twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The picture trending was of a former Municipal councilor’s husband and local politician Camilo Barreto growing a banana sapling in a pothole in the middle of the busy Borda road thereby causing chaos, confusion and forcing PWD officials to a pothole that was far too dangerous.
Herald’s focus is not on the banana tree or the pothole but how Margao residents have taken to Facebook and twitter and other social media platforms to raise concerns of potholes and bad roads in the commercial capital of Goa.
Margao resident Sanjay Sawant Dessai started a Facebook group namely ‘Movement against Potholes,’ for safety of life which is the first platform for all Madgavkars to post pictures of potholes around the city.
“I think this is an apt platform to raise concern but from here, one needs to make an official complaint to the authorities and then gather people’s voices from social media to create awareness,” explains Sanjay who drives around Margao taking pictures of bad roads and flooded streets across the city despite his busy teaching schedule.
Similarly Camilo Barreto, who planted the banana sapling, explains that he was terrified when he saw a speeding ambulance with a patient rushing towards Hospicio when the driver jammed its brakes, jerked and went thudding into the same pothole. Similarly Camilo saw parents with cars and bikes, going through that pothole in the morning which could lead to a pile-up in Borda. That’s when he mobilised Borda residents and planted the banana sampling and took to social media to go behind the authorities.
“I made several complaints but the PWD and the MMC and the Sewerage department just kept sending me from pillar to post and blamed each other. It’s only then I took to a campaign of this sort and I am glad the road is undergoing repairs now and we may have saved a life or two and inconvenience to the Margao residents,” Camilo said.
Taking a leaf from Camilo’s campaign the same evening Margao resident Vishal Bhat took images of a terrible and deep pothole near Hospicio Hospital and related it to residents having to book a bed in the government hospital. By evening, a few residents themselves mobilised from the Facebook campaign and filled the pothole and uploaded images of the same drawing accolades from Margao residents.
Similarly Tryslan Pereira raised concern of a bus stuck in the road in Housing Board section of the city and people mobilised to raise a complaint with the sewerage department and the PWD and got the potholes filed and packed and a crane to pullout the bus.
In another incident Savio Borges and few other Margao residents have now posted pictures of PWD workers, engineers or MMC laborers working on bad sections of the road or gutter or a pothole, so that others can rush to the spot and catch hold of these contractors of PWD engineers and take their grievances of bad roads in their part of Margao instead of running with written complaints to the PWD office that are never attended too.
“Sitting in Toronto, as a Borda resident, I saw the banana tree in the pothole campaign and was amazed and lend my voice to the negligence of our government at home and I followed with friends to keep tracks of the fact that the road was fixed,” explain Brendon Fernandes, a Borda resident.
Similarly owner of Football Dugout, a 5,000 plus community of Goan soccer fans, run by Borda resident Condrad Barreto and well known on social media, trended the Borda road menace across his friends circle and had thousands of Goans to pledge to do something similar in other Salcete villages to draw the attention of the PWD authorities. Condrad, at present, is based in Bangalore.
“Margao residents are disgusted by the roads across the city. The number of accidents, punctures, damage to bikes and flooding is so evident from a badly planned PWD that failed to prepare for the monsoons,” explains Diraj Dessai, another Borda resident, who joined the milieu online.
