Team Herald
MARGAO: The work of the Western Bypass is progressing at a slow pace for want of approvals from the Ministry of Roads. The project that had begun at Rs 219 crore has increased to at least Rs 354 crore. Meanwhile, the Margao Ring Road has been completed and would hopefully be opened for traffic in a month.
Since the PWD landed on the lap of Deepak Pauskar, the minister is going to take time to get a grip on the entire working and with the Code of Conduct in force, the works are going to get delayed.
However, the Western Bypass issue is different: the High Court of Bombay at Goa had in January took suo motu cognisance and had asked the Central ministry as well as the State to complete the highway and commission the same for public use, soon.
The work on the road had begun in 2015 and immediately hit roadblocks all through the 12 kilometers stretch of the road. The PWD road section informed that the section of the road from Seraulim to Varca has been stopped due to opposition to land filling works. Rest of the work of the road which has been earlier tendered is being completed. PWD Officials said that they are awaiting approvals for the completion of the road stretch which has no objections. However, the approvals to these works are pending.
Executive Engineer L B Naik said, “The work of the road is going on. The court too took serious cognisance of the delay and has asked all the departments including the Central Ministry for Road to complete the same as soon as possible. We are awaiting approvals from the Ministry and soon we will speed up the work.”
The Navelim Panchayat recently sent a stop work order to the work of the bypass. The authorities said that it is a central subject and the work can’t stop at state level. The Authorities also said that they may face contempt of court for stopping the work at this juncture.
Various meetings over the pending stretch of the Western Bypass have happened but there is no solution till date that has come on record. The ministry is still hopeful that the construction of 8.3 km of the 12 km of road would be complete by 2020.
Ring Road is one such project which caught up in the whirlwinds for decades. Thankfully there is good news. The engineer concerned informed Herald that the road would be completed and opened for traffic in a month’s time.
Engineer Agnelo Barros said that the Ring Road would be finally completed till the Damodar College subway which has been pending for years.
“Further, from the railway gate there is a litigation pending for clearing of two houses. The demolition order has been given which is expected to be executed after the code of conduct. This will add to the connectivity of ring road to the Margao city,” Barros said.
The officials also said that the acquisition of the land for Ring Road was done phase wise and hence the hindrances too are expected to be cleared in a similar manner.
