GUILHERME ALMEIDA
MARGAO: The three-km Rs 7.4 crore Nuvem bypass is finally ready for commissioning, with the PWD rushing with the project to ensure that the road is thrown open right for traffic before January 18 — ahead of the Lusofonia games.
But Nuvem villagers and activists – which have been waging a struggle for transparency in the execution of the project – say the bypass neither has a provision to regulate and ease traffic bottlenecks at junctions, nor illumination along the entire three-km stretch. They are also sore that neither demand for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study nor the report on the use of industrial slag for the bypass construction has been made available to them by the authorities.
A bumpy drive down the newly-built bypass on Monday revealed that speed breakers are being erected at cross roads to regulate traffic. However, there’s no provision being made for illumination as evident by the fact that not a single electric pole stands installed along the route. And, it was not uncommon to find farmers engaged in agricultural activity along the stretch and they had no idea the impact the land filling will have on their fields during monsoon.
Says PWD Executive Engineer, V S Mardolkar: “We plan to commission the bypass within the next three days. We have completed the project in a record time of two months and half. Once commissioned, the bypass will give big relief for traffic along the Verna-Nuvem stretch”.
While admitting that the bypass lacks illumination facility for the moment, Mardolkar promised to write to the power department to take up the illumination work on top priority.
Activists and villagers, who have been running from pillar to post, demanding that the road be undertaken on scientific lines and also address the burning issue of traffic snarls at the cross roads after its commissioning, however, said the government has literally pushed the project down the throat of the villagers just to meet the Lusofonia games deadline.
Says activist Zarinha Da Cunha: “The villagers have been demanding the EIA report on the project since the bypass cuts through fields and eco-sensitive zones. They have used the slag from the Cuncolim industrial estate, but the report is still not available. The cross drains have been laid without any scientific study. There are cross road at four different points along the bypass, but there’s no provision for traffic regulation, except for speed breakers”.
At a meeting with the local MLA Mickky Pacheco held last month, the villagers had called for experts to undertake a study whether there ought to be flyovers or box culverts or roundabouts to address traffic problems along the bypass, but in vain. A memorandum signed by around 450 residents, which was submitted to the local MLA, had demanded implementation of the resolution adopted at the gram sabha of Nuvem Panchayat on October 20, 2013.
When contacted, Nuvem MLA Mickky Pacheco said that he has written to the PWD as well as the transport department to depute officials to study the flow of traffic at the junctions along the bypass and come out with solutions.
“My letter has gone to these departments after I received a letter from the Nuvem Panchayat two days ago”, he said.
Says Zarinha: “We have literally run from pillar to post. Right from the Environment Minister, Alina Saldanha to the Bio-Diversity Board Member Secretary and Chairman of Goa State pollution Control Board, but there’s no report available either on the environment impact on the ecology or the use of industrial slag on the ground water. The only glimmer of hope for the villagers is that the National Green Tribunal has now taken cognisance of our struggle to save the environment and ecology”.
