Madel-Mungul is the newly extended region of the suburb around growing Margao town which is the last stop before Salcete unwinds into the coastal line of Betalbatim, Colva and Benaulim.
Ward No I Madel, two decades ago, was a set of agricultural fields that found favour with conversion and was the growing sub-urb of buildings allowing people from the villages of Salcete move closer to Margao because of work and convenience of their kids education. But slowly Madel was filled with buildings and more buildings and development that was not sustainable.
“Madel being low-lying and reclaimed from agricultural land and wetlands today still has problems of water logging, flooding and sewage spaces overflowing in the monsoons. Half the stilt parking are flooded in the monsoon because these buildings are in low lying areas and got permission through land conversion on the ODP,” Terence Pinto, who moved to Madel from distant Betul around 15 years ago, told Herald.
He pointed how cars, cycles, bikes and everything else has to parked on the main roads since their stilt parking is inaccessible in the monsoons. Also additional vehicles in each home means vehicles parked on the streets of narrow bylanes of Madel creates a traffic chaos and arguments in the neighbourhood for which the SGPDA needs to be blamed for permitting many constructions without stilt parking or flouting FAR and setback rules.
“Parking is one problem but the low-lying area gets into the sewage chambers and the government sewerage line is clogged and damaged hence all the filthy sewage of Madel is on the streets and stinks. The situation in the monsoon is terrible. The government and MMC are doing nothing though the court has pulled up the authorities now and again,” stated Sandra Rebello who lives in Madel but is afraid of a Dengue outbreak because of the sewage in the open.
The local councilor asserts that it’s just a year since she’s elected and she’s coordinating the issue with the local Fatorda MLA and hoping a solution can be found and executed immediately while she admits that sewage is Madel’s biggest problem and is most often left in the open.
Locals tell us that Madel and Mungul also suffer because it lies at the end of Fatorda constituency and is nearby to the Seraulim panchayat area and the turf wars on roads, sewage, garbage, electric poles, water connection is what really leaves the locals to suffer.
