Team Herald
PONDA: With just a month left for the arrival of the monsoon rains, the residents of Ponda taluka are increasingly worried at the indiscriminate road digging in Ponda, Kavlem, Bandora and Curti for laying sewerage pipelines and for building sewerage chambers/wells.
The locals are uncertain as to when the thousands of pits dug up for sewerage wells would be filled up and the roads restored.
It is the experience of the people that building a sewerage chamber or well takes at least one and half month; considering this, building thousands of sewerage chambers/wells would take a lot of time.
The trenches, chambers/wells are a huge obstruction for vehicular traffic; they have caused many accidents as many vehicles have fallen into these pits in the absence of barricades. And locals fear that the arrival of the monsoons would turn the roads slippery, thereby, worsening situation.
Therefore, the locals have demanded that road digging work be stopped and the dug up portion be restored to prevent hardships to motorists and avoid accidents during the rains.
Umesh Naik, a Curti resident, complained that the authorities never complete pre-monsoon works on time and this leads to chocking up of gutters, which in turn causes flooding. Motorists are the worst sufferers due to flooding, Naik said.
Assailing the Ponda municipality and panchyats for not completing pre-monsoon works on time, social activist Viraj Sapre said that the authorities must complete the works on time, so that the public are not inconvenienced.
Ponda MLA Ravi Naik said that he had held two meetings of all the departments concerned, wherein he directed them to complete their respective works before the arrival of rains, so that the people are not put to hardships.
