PONDA: The Ponda residents under the banner Ponda Vikas Samiti have threatened to come on the streets to force the government to solve their long pending problems.
Addressing the media on Tuesday, Samiti leaders Milind Madgut, Gansham Naik, Ram Cuncolienkar, Ravindra Talavalikar complained that the residents of the temple town have been facing severe hardship since last two years due to road digging for various projects.
And with the arrival of the rains, they said, life would become risky due to bad roads. They demanded that at least government should minimise this problems.
Madgut said that the major issue in Ponda is bad, bumpy and rough roads. “The Sewerage Department dug up the roads for laying sewerage lines. But the work on STP is not completed. So, every year the roads are dug up but not covered properly or asphalted. The monsoon has arrived, but the roads are pothole ridden making them accident prone. Secondly, several roads on outskirt of town too have become dangerous; some people had lost their lives due to confusion on junctions as to which road they should proceed through, due to lack of proper sign boards,” he said.
Another problem faced by the Ponda residents, he said, is the slow movement of passenger buses. “There are hardly two bus stops in the town, but all the passenger buses halt at several places to take the passengers. Because of this, traffic congestion occurs and it takes fifteen minute time to cover two minute distance from upper bazaar to Ponda bus stand wasting money on fuel,” Madgut said.
He blamed the RTO and the traffic police for not taking action on bus drivers for halting their vehicles every few meters and causing traffic congestion.
He alleged that there was some setting between the police and the passenger buses. “Police issues challans to riders for not wearing helmet and for wrong parking. But the same police are turning a blind eye to the buses proceeding at snail’s pace,” he reasoned out.
He demanded that the government conduct inquiry into the behaviour of police as to why only they issues challans to people and not to bus drivers responsible for traffic chaos.
He also said that people face lot of hardship at Ponda RTO due to token system.
“People have to wait for long hours to get their works done. The rains have arrived but the gutter cleaning work is incomplete,” he said.
He said that former PWD minister Sudin Dhavalikar had assured to restore and hot-mix the Ponda roads by December 2018, but that promise was not fulfilled.
“Ponda MLA Ravi Naik too failed to solve these issues. They Government should give relief to the Ponda residents by at least minimising the troubles faced by them by taking urgent measures,” he said.
