It was meant to provide aesthetic illumination and added beauty to the place, but the lamp posts at St Jacinto Bridge are partially illuminated and have ended up attracting the wrong people for the wrong reasons and at the wrong times.
The partially lit lamp posts have invited many anti-social elements to create a nuisance in the area, much to the disgust of residents in the island.
“We can’t have our regular stroll at night on the island, as there are unusual visitors who get drunk and sometimes get very violent. These anti-social elements discard broken liquor bottles and other garbage along the bridge, which sends a wrong signal to tourists visiting the area,” complained a resident, Maria Fernandes.
What has surprised residents is that power supply to the streetlights was disconnected after the Chicalim Panchayat was unable to pay the bills.
According to sources, the panchayat and tourism department were embroiled in a dispute over payment of electricity bills and the panchayat was finally expected to shoulder the responsibility of paying the electricity bills.
“The electricity bills to illuminate the street lamps at St Jacinto Bridge are huge and the panchayat simply doesn’t have enough money and a budget provision to pay the bills. If the bill was about Rs 5,000, the panchayat would not have delayed in the payment,” explained Chicalim Sarpanch Marie Mascarenhas.
Asked to comment on the nuisance at the bridge in the absence of proper illumination, Panch Anacleto D’Souza said: “The panchayat has complained to the police and they have been regularly patrolling the area.”
But when brought to his notice that the police have not been regularly patrolling the site, D’Souza changed his position. “The police have informed me that they do not get sufficient fuel to patrol the area on a daily basis,” admitted D’Souza.
Mascarenhas and D’Souza then sought to pass the buck by claiming that though the island belonged to Chicalim Panchayat, the bridge and the area beyond it belonged to the Sancoale Panchayat.
The residents had hoped that the St Jacinto Bridge would offer them more convenience, while also attracting tourists to the site.
“However, the construction of St Jacinto Bridge has become a pain in the neck, as instead of tourists, the bridge is being exploited by anti-social elements to carry out their nefarious activities,” complained a resident.
“Even claims by police to be patrolling the area every night is wrong. Even if police nabs some culprits they let them go scot free without penalizing them for hanging out at the bridge late in the night,” the villager added.
