Colva road expansion needed, but at what cost?

KARSTEN MIRANDA

karsten@herald-goa.com

COLVA: If one drives to Colva from Mungul, it is impossible not to notice the ongoing road widening work that is underway. The work is part of the upgradation and beautification of road network from Seraulim to Colva Beach – Phase 1.

While some residents, from Seraulim and Colva, feel that the expansion of the road is needed and long overdue, there is considerable resentment over the manner in which the road expansion project is being carried out.  

Citizen Rahul Chandravarkar, a Colva based journalist and writer, raised some of these concerns in an email to Citizen’s Herald. He stated the work is in full flow in the middle section about one km from the railway line towards the beach. 

Some old trees have been chopped down and a large banyan tree next to the Hotel Colva Plaza could be the victim in the next two days. He wrote, “The road will be passing through many private bungalows and properties. Was the consent of the owners taken? Have they been compensated? How many trees including Banyans will be destroyed?”

Similar voices were heard from Seraulim. “Why do we need such a wide road to Colva at the cost of the local people who can’t get in or out of their houses? To fill up whose pockets?” asked Rodney Almeida, a resident of Seraulim.

Some of the objections have been that the road widening work will create water logging issues in the future given how the low-lying fields alongside the Mungul to Per Seraulim stretch is always filled to the brink with water in the rains so much so that it tends to spill on the roads.

“We do need a good road but at whose cost? Haphazard work till late in the night, no proper lights, illegal garage allowed to come up nearby. This is sure to flood the area as there is no under bridge built for the water to flow across like at Mungul. The contractor is least bothered about the safety of residents using this road,” said Trevor Saldanha, a resident of Per Seraulim. 

Others have also felt that the trees that are being cut kept the weather cool especially in the summers and that the old trees are part of Colva’s identity.

Activist Judith Almeida pointed out that one of the major points for the objections to the Regional Plan 2021 was the massive proposed width of the roads and yet this project was allowing the same to happen.

Before the project could commence, Almeida along with other NGOs had raised concerns of land filling impact on natural waterways and that areas that are being filled in the estuarine of River Sal and other highly eco-sensitive were being done with no environment impact assessments carried out. At Colva gram sabhas, some members had recalled how the Chennai floods had been caused due to manmade problems

On the other hand, the pro-road widening lobby opines that with the number of vehicles plying on the road daily that connects Margao to Colva, traffic congestion, especially in the evening during peak hours results in jams that residents have to cope with everyday. Colva Sarpanch Menino Fernandes concurred with the general view that the expansion is required and pointed out that the road expansion had not exceeded the limits. Fernandes, however, questioned the need for footpaths on the side of the road as part of the beautification project and felt the footpath project would add to the problems of access to houses and establishments along the road. He felt that the footpaths and beautification should be kept for the beach area and not in residential areas.

He, however, did not agree with the concerns about trees being cut and felt that the trees would have go to in order to allow the expansion of the road failing which the roads would continue to remain narrow.

MLA Caetano (Caitu) Silva, who is the main architect of the project, pointed out that the order for felling trees were given by the collector after following due procedure and pointed out that these trees were built on government property and not inside personal property. 

“The land for expansion was acquired in the mid 1970s. This is a long standing demand and it cannot be a situation where people want everything and yet raise objections to everything. There were objections to laying of the pipeline but it had to be built on the road which is government property. The expansion of this road won’t just benefit the locals but everyone in Goa including the tourists. There have been many accidents on this road because it is narrow,” Silva said.

District Collectorate officials pointed out that joint inspections were done before the work could commence and the majority of the land owners had consented to the road widening project including the panchayats of the area. The previous government had also tried to push ahead the project but it could only begin towards the end of 2015 after the technical issues were sorted.

Wednesday’s incident where the embankment of the Khareband-Benaulim road collapsed raised further fears about testing nature’s wrath.

Like in most projects in Goa there are two sides. The moot question is whether the government, in its effort to ease traffic congestion, is being insensitive to genuine people’s concerns, their right to access their properties and the protection of age old trees which have been a part of the Colva landscape for years.