Margao roads currently being asphalted and looking trim and tidy, will not bear this look for long as they will be dug up by the Public Works Department to connect the buildings and houses to the new sewerage system financed by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA).
Besides, JICA is financing a new sewerage treatment plant at Sirvodem. The Sewerage and Infrastructural Development Corporation (SIDC) is entrusted the task of laying the sewerage pipeline in different parts of Margao for which it has to dig and erect the wells or manholes and connect them through a pipeline.
While work for the sewerage pipeline is finished in most parts, few pockets remain like the area near the Old railway station and Khareband where work is going on at full steam at the moment.
As the administration has decreed that there will be no road digging or cutting after May 15, Margao Municipal Council Chief Officer Y B Tawde revealed that a notice has been issued to SIDC regarding their ongoing work in Margao.
However, SIDC officials were confident of finishing all the work and said that repairs of the roads dug up by them to lay the sewerage lines will be undertaken next week itself.
It would be pertinent to point out that as the existing sewerage treatment plant at Sirvodem is saturated there is mounting pressure to commission the new plant being financed by JICA at the earliest with even recourse from the court being sought. The PWD is expected to connect the new sewerage line to the treatment plant latest by December this year and to do that they will have to connect the buildings or households to the new line laid by it for which the presently asphalted roads will have to be dug up again.
For motorists using the roads in Margao who had taken a sigh of relief on the improvement in the road conditions, will have this luxury cut short as when the roads will be dug up again is anybody’s guess.
