JULIO D’SILVA
julio@herald-goa-com
There is a confusion prevailing over the Regional Plans whether Chandor comes under the State Highway or not. The villagers of Chandor have brought this to the notice of the TCP Minister, Vijay Sardesai on May 16, 2017. Vijai then asked the PWD to submit a report and the PWD in turn sought a clarification from the Town and Country Planning Department since confusion prevailed over the State Highway alignment.
Chief Town Planner Dr S T Puttaraju in his letter dated June 1, 2017 addressed to the Executive Engineer, Works Division VI of PWD stated as under: “It is hereby clarified that road from Margao-Sao Jose de Areal-Chandor-Curchorem is shown as SH 8 in Regional Plan for 2021 based on the road shown as SH 8 in the Regional Plan for Goa – 2001, which is as per the notification dated February 17, 1977.”
However, the Regional Plan for 2001 which was published and notified does not show any State Highway passing through the village of Chandor. Even in the Regional Plan 2021 that was not approved, no State Highway is shown passing through Chandor.
In fact in both the plans the State Highway is shown as passing from San Jose de Areal, Paroda and Tilamol area of Xeldem village and this is what has been brought to the notice of the Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai who had assured the villagers that he would take action in the matter.
It would be pertinent to point out that the villagers had submitted a memorandum to Vijai on May 16, 2017 following which he asked the PWD to submit a report and the PWD in turn sought a clarification from the Town and Country Planning Department as there was confusion over the alignment of the State Highway.
The confusion was created by the PWD itself which in reply to a query from the Excise Department asking for the alignments of the highways to implement the Supreme Court order to ban liquor vends along highways, said that particular highway was passing through parts of Curtorim, Guirdolim and then to Curchorem via Chandor only because there was a missing link on another alignment of the highway.
It was to clarify the three different alignments of the said State Highway that was reflected in official records of various departments of the government, that the PWD sought a clarification from the Town and Country Planning Department to which Dr Puttaraju replied vide the letter dated June 1, 2017.
“Dr Puttaraju instead of clarifying the situation as only created further confusion by resorting to blatant lies for which he has to pay the price,” said Domnick Mendes, Convener of the organisation formed by the villagers to deal with this issue.
Former Sarpanch of Guirdolim Agostinho Antao also pointed out to various other documents to prove that State Highway was never passing through Chandor. “Construction plans whenever sent to the TCP always indicated that the set-back from the centre of the road was never 15 mts which should have been the distance if the road was a State Highway,” he said adding that in villages of Sao Jose de Areal, Paroda and even Xeldem the set-back recommended confirmed that the state highway was passing through those villages.
While pointing out that the Chandor villagers had even objected to the Major District Road shown to be passing through their village in the Regional Plan 2021 that was sent for their comments to the village panchayat, it said that if the State Highway was marked in that plan, not only would have it been objected to but the movement to get it denotified would have been launched then itself.
