PANJIM: Even before the monsoon could hit Goa, Mapusa has been flooded by the waters of the pre-monsoon showers.
On Monday water had entered the Bardez Bazaar shopping centre in the government premises that also houses the office of the Deputy Collector and Mamlatdar. The loss has been estimated at Rs 2.5 lakh by the management.
Mapusa Municipal Council sources said the recent hot mixing of parking areas in the complex had led to water logging inside the bazaar, as the height of the roads had increased and there was no way to drain the rainwater.
“With the showers water also flooded the market which created a lot of inconvenience to shopkeepers and customers. The local authorities should complete these pre-monsoon works within a specified timeframe,” Pernem resident Rohidas Arolkar said.
Last week the entire Chacha Nehru Park was flooded with water. “This is a bad state of affairs where the local administration has failed to accomplish the work of drains and diversion of water coming into the town from the hills,” local resident Dinanath Salunke said.
Last Wednesday all outlets on the both side of roads in front of Chacha Nehru Park were blocked as the contractor building a footpath had left the drains blocked. The contractor should have constructed an outlet to the drains below footpath but this was not done properly leading to the flooding.
Also, the nullah coming from Dattwadi behind the Maruti temple was around 1.20 metres wide. This has been drastically reduced to hardly 40 cms and a concrete slab put over it. Flooding was also the result of the decrease in size of the nullah.
MMC Chairperson Sandeep Falari, however, assured this won’t repeat. “It is just a one day phenomenon. I assure you that such incidents like water logging will not be seen again in Mapusa. For the last six days my team has been working to find out of the blocks and repair them. We have also de-silted a couple of drains which were causing flooding,” Falari said.
