It’s 6.30 am and the owners of their ancient Portuguese era old homes slowly step out to either visit the temple, head to Holy Spirit Church or just walk through the tiny streets of Comba. Placed on the parallel by lanes of the Abade Faria main road, Comba is a tiny suburb nestled between main Margao city and Khareband-Colva road on the other side. But the residents of Comba are feeling haggled and bullied by car owners and buses.
“Fifteen to twenty years ago, a few school going students on their bicycles or parents travelling from Borda, Maddel, Modsai, Monte and even from Colva and Benaulim on their tiny two wheeler scooters would ride through Comba to avoid Margao traffic congestion or the extra round around the garden,” recollects John Silveira, a resident of Murmutti-Comba.
John explains how nowadays all the college students proceeding to the Damodar College, or people heading to Mahila Nutan, Popular School, Loyola HS, Fatima and Vidya Vikas schools, all ply through Comba thereby creating huge traffic jams, dust pollution and noise pollution.
“The roads of Comba have clear signages for decades stating no entry to heavy vehicles and trucks, but many tempos with goods, school buses and even private city buses plying to KTC bus stand go through Comba thereby adding to our traffic problems. Why the cops can’t book these buses? Is it so difficult for the traffic police to restrict drivers and those riding illegally through the streets of Comba?” questions Arvind Naik, a comba resident who gets delayed daily to work because of this.
Similarly Ana Menezes, who lives behind the Civil Court, explains how the lawyers and their juniors block the entire Comba-Old Market area parking around the court premises despite there being no space of any kind for parking.
“Our gate more often than not is blocked by cars. The lawyers refuse to listen to residents and park elsewhere and there is not a single traffic cop to look into this menace or clamp these cars that park at the inconvenience of Comba residents,” stated Ana Menezes.
The South Goa Advocates Forum Secretary Antonio Clovis Costa explains, “There’s a plot near the district court acquired by the law department almost a decade back to shift the civil and trial court that side, a space that has more facility while this building will then become only a library or to store documents and automatically resolve the parking problem.”
Clovis, on behalf of the advocates, admits that there is no parking at Comba around the existing court and lawyers themselves are delayed for matters or most of the times have to deal with their cars being clamped.
A traffic police constable also explains to us that the fact that the cars belong to the advocates, they fear clamping the cars or being strict on enforcing the no parking rule. He explains to us how the advocates refuse to pay the fines and summon the cops to the court for cross examination and hence, the cops go slow on clamping the vehicles.
“I have taken a small step myself to ease this problem. I have asked the MMC in its last meeting to notify the entire old market area and the area around the civil court as a no parking zone which means that now the cops can be strict to implement the no parking rule. Also in the vicinity, we’re identifying a pay parking zone which will sort out the problem but the solution lies in shifting the court,” explains Ward Number 10 councilor Glen Andrade.
