Andrea Fernandes
andrea@herald-goa.com
MAPUSA: The ongoing work to widen the National Highway-17 has become a matter of concern for those commuting along this route especially at night.
With construction work carried out in patches, the movement of vehicles has become extremely haphazard along the route. Coupled with this, random speeding of vehicles is leading to more accidents on the stretch.
The stretch from the new flyover at Bastora up to the Sangolda junction is turning out to be a death trap for commuters. There is no proper lighting along this entire stretch and during the monsoon the road is very dangerous for the commuters. There are no proper signages of diversions at few places and the roads are also pothole ridden in certain areas.
Locals living along this highway opine that the safety standards are not being maintained and the contractor should be booked and prosecuted for endangering the lives of the public.
Former advocate general Carlos Ferreira said that he had seen many people crash along this highway as the path is not clear.
“Goans as well as non-Goans crash into the median section, because they do not know where to climb up on the concreted or rather alternate portion. I have videos of some of the incidents taken by myself. Previously, a Maharashtra car crashed into the concrete portion at the first Guirim flyover that is under construction after which a red light strip has since been put up. In my view, this is completely contrary to the agreement and the contractor and officials monitoring are responsible and they should be booked and prosecuted for endangering the lives of the public. They cannot awaken only when tragedy strikes,” he said.
The former deputy sarpanch of Bastora, Andrew D’Souza, lamented that the previous government was not bothered about the public.
“It was just destruction being carried out across the length and breadth of the State in the name of development. Today travelling at night to Pernem from Mapusa is a nightmare. There are so many accidents that take place and most of them are not recorded. Proper lighting has to be done along this stretch as the first measure,” D’Souza said.
The founder member of Revolutionary Goans, Manoj Parab, condemned the authorities for the haphazard National Highway expansion work.
“The so called development of this highway is being carried out for the benefit of coal transportation which itself will take thousands of lives when it commences. It is time for the people of Goa and the government to realise the adverse effect of this haphazard development. The contractor is least bothered about the lives of common man and the government is giving them a free hand as this is a multi-crore deal. This killer highway will only kill people and take more lives,” Parab said.
“I hope we have learnt our lesson from the floods that occurred in Kerala. We have seen that a week of intense rain can undo all the development and investments. The highways that the governments have built over the two decades have caused a lot of harm to the environment with trees and hills being cut,” Parab added.
