TEAM HERALD
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MARGAO: Residents of Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado’s home village Navelim either burn midnight oil or set an alarm to wake up as early as 2 in the morning these days.
The reason is not far too seek: The residents literally undergo this ordeal as the taps run dry through the day and water comes in trickles only in the wee hours.
In fact, the last one week saw beleaguered residents of Navelim village, especially the tail end areas of Sinquetim, Nagmodem and neighbouring Telaulim village have been facing acute water problem over the last one week. A resident said that unless they wake up in the wee hours, they run the risk of going without water throughout the day as they don’t receive water during day time. “People in these areas are facing a serious water problem. Unless they get up at 2 am, they have to virtually go without water for the day,” explained a professional staying at Nagmodem.
One theory that did the rounds in these affected areas is that the water supply is hit by leakages in the valves along the supply route. The fisheries minister, however, attributed the problem to the water supply problem plaguing the Selaulim water pipeline. The Navelim MLA, who convened a meeting with the PWD officials, said that he had suggested installing a booster pump to augment supply of water to the tail end areas of Navelim.
PWD Executive engineer, S R Paranjapee, however, firmly ruled out the question of water shortage because of the Selaulim water supply. “We are pumping 214 MLD every day from the Selaulim water plant to South Goa. May be the problem at Navelim is because of the distribution network in the village,” he added.
When Herald contacted PWD Executive engineer P Fatarpekar in-charge of Navelim to throw light on the water shortage, he sought to attribute the problem to the water pipeline damage caused due the digging work on the underground sewage line. ‘The water pipeline was damaged thrice last week resulting in this problem in tail end areas. This is a normal tendency when the air gets trapped inside the line when the pipe is damaged,” Fatarpekar said.
The beleaguered residents will have to hopefully wait for the next 2-3 days for the ordeal to end as the situation is expected to return to normal early next week.
