TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar promised to personally supervise the ongoing sewerage work, including closing up of the trenches and asphalting of roads after completion of work in Taleigao constituency.
He intervened after a concerted attack was launched by the Monserrate couple – Jennifer and Atanasio (Babush) on the PWD Minister Ramkrishna Sudin Dhavalikar in the House, on the lack of supervision by his engineers leading to bad state of roads and pending works in Taleigao constituency. “Please remove this portfolio from him. Please give him the art and culture portfolio. He is more involved in culture,” Babush chided, before alleging that the department’s engineers were not supervising what was going on and that one of the junior engineers even told him that he could not check what was going on because he did not have a jeep.
Babush rose up in support of his wife and Taleigao MLA Jennifer who wanted to know how long the sewerage work in their constituency was taking and that even the roads that were closed last year were still in bad shape as they are not tarred.
“In some places in Taleigao there are no roads,” Jennifer told the House, arguing that Dhavalikar’s explanation that the filling of the sewerage trenches needs time to settle did not hold water as two rains had passed and the tarring had still not been done.
At this the Chief Minister intervened saying that he too had to suffer due to these bad roads but did not want to complain but agreed with Jennifer.
“There is total neglect by the engineers. I will personally look into this,” Parrikar said.
This attack came on the heels of the onslaught launched by BJP MLA Pramod Sawant on Dhavalikar that the amount of non-plan works was very high, compared to the plan works according to the figures mentioned in his answer.
Jennifer had asked the PWD minister about the date by which the laying of sewerage lines will commence for villages of Odxel, Oitalem, Nagali, Santissmo waddo, Nairallem, Eugene Morod, Padri Bhatt upto Goa University in Taleigao constituency; whether the proposal to execute the said areas with sewage network is under preparation and the time-frame by which the Government will execute the works in the above mentioned areas?
Dr Pramod Sawant attacked the PWD Minister alleging that non- plan works were very large as well as many engineers were in the same posting for a long time. He was speaking during the discussion on his question asking for the division-wise details of all payments (Plan & Non Plan) made from March 1, 2012 to June 30, 2014.
“The non-plan work is becoming too much. So I want the minister to inquire into this and submit a report,” Sawant argued. However the minister was not willing to give any assurance hedging and saying that in case there were specific instances, the MLA should bring it to his notice and he would inquire into it.
Despite the allegation and the figures on non-plan and plan expenditure being of 2013-14, the minister chose to inform the House that he had referred to the vigilance wing many works from Section 17 and Section 25 in the 2010-12 era.
