KARSTEN MIRANDA
Every night, the residents of Margao and Fatorda and the surrounding areas, including Navelim and Raia, face inconvenience and are left helpless when the road leading to their house or the street near their house is plunged in darkness.
Against the backdrop of schemes promoting LED bulbs and citizens complaining of constant power breakdowns, this case is brought about by delinquents who not only damage streetlights but bring with them an undesired nuisance factor.
Across the town and surrounding areas, especially in residential areas, be it societies or bungalows, there has been a new habit where young boys come and park their bikes and vehicles under these streetlights and they open up the electric box at the base of the streetlight pole and manually switch off the lights.
What happens is that the entire street that was meant to be lit up at night is now in darkness giving the anti-social elements a perfect cover for their nefarious activities.
The Electricity Department has failed to look into the matter even though details and location of the damaged streetlights have been given to them. “Shouldn’t the Electricity Department check this, given that power is being supplied to these poles but there is no light and thus a waste of the exchequer money?” asked Asif Usman from Margao.
What has angered and upset locals is how constant calls to the authorities, including the police have been met with deaf ears in spite of societies and local ward groups submitting memorandums in the recent past to the South Goa superintendent of police.
Ironically, these same groups of concerned citizens were told to install CCTV cameras among other precautionary measures but the police have failed to act even though there is evidence of these boys drinking, smoking and even consuming banned substances.
“One the on hand, in the dark you can barely see the street. Then in the middle of the night you hear blaring music and people are scared to approach the boys as they have no idea who these people are and what they are capable of. When they are seen consuming drugs for example, calls are made to the police who invariably show up an hour later and the boys are either alerted or move out. Sometimes these boys remain till 3 am,” said Sarvesh Keni from Arlem.
The fallout of this situation is that women and children are forced to take alternative routes as the anti-social elements start hanging out at these spots early in the evening and stay on till late night.
“It is quite sad as earlier children would pass by with their cycles or take these roads as people normally do to catch a bus or reach the market but now you can see girls and children take other, longer routes as they find these groups intimidating,” said Ashwin Fernandes from Fatorda.
Locals are also concerned about the spate of robberies particularly thefts of two-wheelers or breaking in into vehicles and wonder whether these are linked to the presence of these young delinquents. There is also a cleanliness angle as the boys leave glass alcohol bottles in the drains and snack packets, cigarette cases and other items.
Incidentally, CCTV cameras installed by societies had caught a break in by the infamous ‘chaddi gang’, a case that the police haven’t cracked yet but despite such surveillance and security concerns, police patrolling of streets and internal roads is irregular and has not stopped the late night anti-social activity.
