Team Herald
SANGUEM: Sanguem MLA Prasad Gaonkar along with Deputy Collector Ajay Gaude and other officials visited the hilly areas of Salgini, Tudov and Verlem to verify the road condition and explore possibilities for road widening and installation of street lighting.
Gaonkar was also accompanied by Forest Officer Vardakar, who during the course of site inspection, assured of the Forest Department giving due clearances for the much needed road widening work of the road leading to the hilly areas and also for putting up electricity poles for the installation of street lights all along the road.
The villagers residing in the hilly areas had always been critical of the objections raised by the Forest Department towards any development works in the village including that of construction and repair work of the road.
There have been incidences of the Forest Department strongly objecting for blacktopping of a certain portion of the road for several years.
However, with the green signal given by Vardakar, the villagers are now hopeful of getting a decent road to proceed to their villages, which till now had just six metres wide road with no street lighting.
After the inspection, Gaonkar directed the AE PWD Roads Sanjay Vaze and Assistant Engineer Electricity Department Malshekar to work in tandem over the construction work of the road and the installation of streetlights in the villages.
Gaonkar however opined that due to heavy rains which continue to lash taluka since the past few days, the work of road widening will take some time. Gaonkar however appealed to the PWD engineers to continue with the road repair work soon after the rains.
Incidentally, the road contractor who was allocated with the repair work having disappeared for some time, it was decided to trace him out and direct him to continue with the pending work as otherwise the work will be further delayed if the government decides to allocate the work to a new contractor.
