Team Herald
PONDA: The locals of Ponda continue to grapple with perpetually dug-up roads and heaps of earth eating up their footpaths, while they wait for the completion of the sewerage network in the town, a project that has been ongoing for the past seven years. Even as the deadline for the project was 2018, more permissions are being sought to dig up more of the town, lament locals.
“Commuting on these dug-up roads has been a nightmare, and people are suffering as they live and work in these dusty conditions. Besides the Kapileshwari-Daag road, the Ponda market road has also turned bumpy due to the pending sewerage work,” said local social worker Viraj Sapre.
The Sewage Treatment Plant building constructed over a six-year period has not been made operational either. The officials are not providing the details of the pending work or technical problems faced by them, complain locals. Sewerage and PWD sources confirmed that the Goa Sewerage Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited has sought fresh permission from the PWD for road digging to construct a few more chambers and added that the work would continue up to May 2023.
On account of the pending work, around 30 to 40 per cent of the roads have not been hot mixed leaving them in bad shape. Officials of the PWD (Road Division) said the Goa Sewerage Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited has not provided the completion certificate for 40 percent of the work carried out by them. They said unless the work is complete, they cannot take up hot mix carpeting of these roads in Ponda.
When contacted, PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral said that development works are taken up for public welfare and so they should bear some hardship while these works are ongoing. The PWD Minister said he did not mention any date for the inauguration of the STP, as work is still progressing. He added that he will inspect the Ponda STP after the Goa Assembly Session.
