Team Herald
CALANGUTE: Traffic on the busy Baga road was disrupted on Monday morning when a truck literally sank into a sewerage chamber at Sauntavaddo, in the latest such incident involving the sinking sewage chambers in Calangute.
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Stakeholders said there have been frequent accidents because of tourists speeding on bikes and cars without any idea of the sunken chambers. “Baga road has become a death trap to motorists and we demand a proper probe to check the quality of work and initiate action against those responsible for the mess,” Premanand Diukar, president of the Calangute Constituency Forum (CCF) said.
The CCF and Calangute Congress workers have held a number of protests over the shoddy work on the sewerage network, resulting in the sinking of the busy Baga road ever since it was dug up to lay the sewerage pipeline a decade ago. There are more than 2,000 sewerage chambers all over Calangute.
After numerous protests, Calangute MLA Michael Lobo recently said the PWD has drawn up a plan to repair the sinking sewage chambers, and work will start in mid-January after the New Year tourist season.
“After January 10, we will start work on the sewage chambers which are sinking every year and then we will hotmix the roads,” he said.
Traffic on the busy Baga road has been repeatedly thrown out of gear after it caved in at various spots over the years. Activists had warned that the commissioning of the sewerage treatment plant at Baga without repairing the sinking sewage chambers would spell disaster for the tourism hub.
“It’s high time that the government looks into the matter seriously to find out the right solution before they start the sewage treatment plant operations or else people will have to close their businesses and leave their houses in case the chambers burst,” activists said.
“If this happens, then Calangute will no longer be a tourist destination,” residents said.
