Team Herald
PANJIM: In yet another incident in less than a week, a sewage suction truck fell on its side and rear portion landed in the pit dug up for sewerage-cum-smart road work at Tonca, Miramar.
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One side adjacent to the pit on the road had caved-in partially due to continuous flow of traffic on the particular road stretch.
The incident occurred when the sewer jetting truck loaded with raw sewage was proceeding from Krishi Bhavan to PWD’s Sewerage Treatment Plant. Fortunately, labourers were not working in the particular pit when the rear portion of the truck landed in the pit. The driver of the truck escaped unhurt. Raw sewage was transferred into another sewer jetting truck before the trapped truck was removed using a heavy hydraulic crane.
One side of the road was blocked while the other half is open for the movement of vehicles belonging to locals. On average, daily 60-80 trucks from different parts of North Goa come to the STP, Tonca.
An engineer of the Bagkiya Constructions Pvt Ltd, who is executing the sewerage work for the Goa State Urban Development Agency under the Smart City Mission claimed that the road is closed for heavy vehicles and that a signage board has been put up all along the stretch. But the Herald Team on site couldn’t find a single signage. In fact, the barricades were placed only after the incident.
In a similar incident on February 6, four labourers were left injured, when a truck laden with laterite stones fell on its side with its rear portion landing in a pit at St Inez, where the sewerage work was underway.
Vijaykumar Honawad, Chief Project Officer of GSUDA, who is also the Chief General Manager of Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited blamed the driver of sewage suction truck for the accident and gave clean chit to the contractor.
