The port town of Vasco has been blessed with sewerage network and treatment plant that connects 90 to 95 per cent of households in Mormugao, Vasco (except Belabai, Down Mangor Hill, New Vaddem) and part of Dabolim Constituency. However, the people are forced to witness overflowing sewerage filth that spills all over.
This occurs because the existing plant has completed 30 years of its stipulated lifecycle, and cannot take in additional sewerage load. Similarly the sewerage network, which was laid way back in the year 1978 and then renovated in the year 1989 and 1997, has either settled/broken/ choked, making way for infiltration and blocking of lines at regular intervals. With every incident of overflowing of sewage, citizens curse and blame the PWD, but hardly anyone understands the fact that the PWD authorities have been managing the sewerage operations not only with old and dilapidated machineries but with the treatment plant which officially had to be decommissioned a year ago.
“Staff crunch, lack of machinery and insufficient back up motor pumps are few areas where we fall short in providing best service. However, our major concern is the dumping of all sorts of garbage including the construction debris in the sewage line which often blocks the sewerage line and people accuse us for the overflow,” a PWD official told Herald.
According to PWD officials, the city today desperately needs new sewerage network for which works have started at full swing.
“The present sewerage system is under constant criticism as it’s not serving the purpose it was built for, at least now. The plant was designed to cater to a population of 28,000 with a capacity of 7.5 million litres per day (MLD). However, as the population grew the plant was later upgraded to a 14 MLD plant in the year 1992, from 500 odd connections. The number of beneficiaries today has increased to 3660 connections, directly benefitting about 42,770 people of all three constituencies of Port town. Still there were many households which are yet to get connected with this network due to non availability of pumping stations and lack of networks,” said a PWD sewerage department official.
The work on the new plant also kick started in the year 2014 with the deadline to complete the work in 18 months’ time. But something went wrong and the project is yet to be completed because the concerned department has failed to clear the bills of the contractor. Due to the non-payment of bills, work at the site has come to a halt while the contractor has been asked to complete the work before November 2016, which looks like an impossible task, considering the present scenario at the site
