NESHWIN ALMEIDA
A drive from Arlem junction or Pepsi circle to the road leading to the famous Fatorda stadium, all you see is debris, floods, excavated roads and a messy highway expansion job. All this when the U-17 FIFA World Cup is a few weeks away and the stadium is one of the venues for the youth tournament.
But the real eyesore is the wastage of expensive construction material and the expensive sand dumped opposite the stadium for the road widening that’s getting washed away in the incessant rainfall. The work seems delayed and puts the commuters in complete jeopardy.
Sand nowadays costs Rs 20,000 a truckload which is around seven tonnes of sand but here around 20 truckloads of sand is getting washed away in the nearby fields in the monsoons and the PWD seems to have no interest in stopping this wastage.
“Basically the land here is acquired for four-laning of the highway on either side and work is on from Colva circle to Arlem circle. Simultaneously drains are being built, the hard shoulder is designed and flattened while the road expansion work for the State Highway is ongoing,” explains the PWD Engineer Ratnakar Challan.
Speaking to the Herald Ratnakar explains that work seems to be on schedule but the monsoon is the key factor of delay since outdoor labour and workforce prefer not to work in the monsoons and work hence there may be some delays.
While Oliver Coutinho from the vicinity explains that the highway works were planned in 1977 when marking were laid way back then but the actual acquisition for the highway started only in 2009 and saw further delays when he and a few others moved court challenging the acquisition for highway expansion which was poised at a government rate of Rs 32 per square metre.
“After two years of fighting it out in the court, we were given Rs 2,220 additional per square metre as compensation for land acquisition which is also a meagre amount considering the actual land rate in Fatorda. But not to stall development, we allowed the highway works to commence early this year,” stated Oliver.
While Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai admits that a 30-year-old highway expansion has finally started only because the residents of Fatorda-Arlem voluntary allowed land acquisition for this highway expansion of over Rs 25 crore from Ravindra Bhavan to Arlem junction.
“The monsoon itself has been the real delay in the work while the public is facing the brunt. There were also other issues along these works of whether to denotify the highway and carry out just road widening in order to save the bar owners along this stretch but despite all these deliberations we’re hopeful to carry out this work quickly with little inconvenience to residents,” stated the Fatorda MLA and Town and Country Planning Minister.
