Sewerage scheme receives lukewarm response in Margao
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, MAY 25
The Goa Sewerage Corporation appears a worried lot over the lukewarm response to the sewerage scheme in the Commercial Capital.
More than a year after sewerage work commenced in Sirvodem-Margao with the Trenchless technology, ninety-five per cent of the work stands completed, but the Sewerage Corporation has nothing to cheer about.
For, the offer made by the Corporation to the residents of the ward to apply for sewerage connections has not evoked encouraging response.
If the Chairman of the Sewerage Corporation Ganashyam Shirodkar is to be believed, less than 25 per cent of the households have applied for the connections, leaving the Corporation in a tight spot.
“The government has spent around Rs 5 crore to lay the sewerage line covering around 6 kilometers. The objective is to rid the area of the sanitation program, but not many people have applied for the connections”, Shirodkar added.
Given the situation, the Chairman of the Sewerage Corporation said the government is now framing rules to make it mandatory for the households across Goa to take sewerage connections. “The Act has already been amended by the government. Once the rules are framed, the households will have no option than to compulsorily for the sewerage connections”, he said.
Asked on the status of the sewerage line in Sirvodem, he said the line is almost complete in the ward, barring a small work passing through the fields. “Nearly 95 per cent of the work stands completed in Sirvodem. Only work on constructing manholes remains. Phase I of drilling is over”, he said, adding that preliminary testing of the line has showed positive results.
Meanwhile, Shirodkar said the work on the covering Madel ward of the Margao Municipal Council to the Margao sewerage line is almost complete. This, he said, will solve the problem of overflowing soakpits in the low-lying Madel ward.
