Call it tough love, for that is what Panjim is getting a dose of currently with the PWD digging up the city roads for the past few weeks to replace the old DI pipes and replacing them with HDPE pipes as part of the JNURUMM project.
“We are changing the pipelines. We are replacing the old pipelines. The present pipes are breaking in many places. We are replacing this with HDPE pipelines under JNNURMM. We are replacing the pipelines of the whole of Panjim, block by block,” D G Borkar, Chief Engineer PWD told Herald.
The Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) has started desilting the Portuguese era storm drains. These, sources said, had last been touched in pre-Liberation Goa.
Panjim mayor Shubam Chodankar told Herald that they had asked the PWD to complete the work by the end of the month while the storm drain work would be ready before the monsoon.
“We told the PWD to complete the work by the end of April. The desilting work has also been started. Nobody had taken up this work since the Portuguese time. We will complete it as soon as possible,” Chodankar said.
The desilting, reconstruction and construction of five cross drains at the cost of Rs 5.75 lakh (amount of CCP) had been cleared initially under the former mayor Surendra Furtado. “If these are cleaned then 18th June Road will not flood. It was completely silted. I had cleared this proposal,” Furtado confirmed when contacted.
But while that is being done, the people have to survive the mess.
“I went out for a round after quite some time and was surprised to see all the roads dug up. It felt weird – as if I am staying in a village with hardly any tarred road seen anywhere,” said Kalpesh Sakhalkar, a resident.
“The whole of Panjim and surrounding area is in a mess. The Miramar road is not yet ready. I had to go all the way to Dona Paula and come back to drop my daughter to school in Miramar. I hope the basic area is at least done before the monsoon or else we could organise a rally driving in our city itself.”
