PANJIM: For decades, the 3.7 kilometer long St Inez Creek, which opens into the River Mandovi and considered to be a paradise and the lifeline of the capital city, Panjim, has been virtually reduced to a gutter. While the government has been claiming that it has spent Rs 37 crore to make various efforts to desilt and beautify the rotting and stinking St Inez creek, the main artery of the capital city remains is still the same and residents are wondering whether they will ever see fresh water flowing through it again.
Explaining the problem behind it, Patricia Pinto, environmentalist and a Panjim resident, said,” The authorities have no plan for getting the creek back into a proper working condition. The creek is in such a condition because sewage is entering it. Whether you clean it 10 or 100 times sewage will continue to enter the creek and nothing will work.”
“Remember, it is not a sewage outlet, it is a creek. This creek gets in the tidal water from the river upto a certain level and then gets flushed out. Many of the drains right from Nagali are connected to this creek. So it helps in draining the city. It is the creek which gets the tide and drains the city through it. Now when the drains are broken and demolished,” she said.
Pinto said, “Sewage pouring into the creek poses a very serious problem, which the Smart City officials have not got at all. They just fool and cheat us by saying that we are cleaning the creek. We have already spent crores of rupees but nothing is going to happen. The sewage department may deny but the fact is that during the day, clean water comes in and at night it is flooded with sewage. This happens because the sewage plant at St Inez cannot cope up with it sewage from areas around Calangute, Candolim, Porvorim and dumped into our system.”
“First of all the entering of sewage into the creek from the Sewage Treatment Plant and many buildings in the area has to stop. This is the first step. After you have done this, then you start cleaning the creek. Unless this is done, the creek will be worse than what it is today. There are two inlets from the River Mandovi that bring the tidal water into the creek. One is opposite the Old GMC and another near the Sports Stadium. Near the stadium, there is a big pipe going across the drain which has to be removed because it is not being used. A complete study has to be done on this and if it is not working then it should be brought into working condition,” she said.
Farmer and environmentalist Xavier de Almeida said,” Some miscreants have blocked the ingress of saline water into the creek. This has been done to categorise it as a ‘Nala’ (drain). It is always a creek. Once you say it is a creek and there are mangroves there then it falls under CRZ and then you have to leave ten meters from both the sides. This will not allow constructions to take place. But because of vested interests, the inlet of the saline water has been blocked near Inox. Earlier during the high and low tide, the saline water used to flow freely in and out of the creek . The area was rich in biodiversity and now everything has disappeared. Ii is unfortunate that the city which gets the award is having a water body like this.”
Councillor and former Corporation of the City of Panjim (CCP) Mayor Udai Madkaikar said,” There is an urgent need of cleaning the creek. But whether it is cleaning of the creek or the Smart City work, all are very slow. They must expedite the work because monsoon is at the doorstep. Yesterday, it was just a trailer. Problem is that sewage department and other buildings are releasing sewage into the creek. Goa Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has to stop this. It should take strict action.”
Recently, the Water Resources Department (WRD) Executive Engineer Nazareth Vaz had claimed that the cleaning work is almost over and likely to be made spic and span by April end.
The desilting work of approximately Rs 37 crore was given to the Water Resources Department (WRD) in 2021 and the work started in the early 2022.
