NT NETWORK
PANAJI
Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday announced that the state government will set up garbage treatment plant at Bainguinim in Old Goa with a 250 tonne capacity where garbage from entire Tiswadi taluka will be treated.
“We will build a garbage treatment plant at Bainguinim which will handle the garbage of entire Tiswadi taluka for which we will soon float a tender,” said Parrikar while speaking at the ceremony for laying of foundation stone for the work of vehicular underpass and appurtenances at Old Goa-Karmali junction road.
Stating that a garbage plant can be kept as clean as a factory, Parrikar urged panchas of the Old Goa village panchayat to visit the state-of-the-art solid waste treatment plant at Saligao before raising any objection to the proposed plant at Bainguinim.
Parrikar said that accidents are bound to happen despite of having four lane roads and all other infrastructure if traffic rules are not followed by the commuters. He said, “When it comes to accidents, Goa ranks four to five times higher than the national average but the number of vehicles in Goa is eight times more than the national average and this needs to be kept in our minds. That doesn’t justify accidents.”
He said that if traffic rules and laws are properly followed then the number of accidents will decrease in no time.
“We have successfully brought down the accident rate by five per cent in last two to three months, I feel that the accident rate should come down by 50 per cent then only in real terms we can say that we are successful,” he said.
He informed that the government has completed the load testing of Gaundalim Bridge which was temporarily closed for all types of vehicular traffic as miscellaneous works have been undertaken along the bridge. He said that the permissions to open the Gaundalim bridge for vehicular traffic has been received, and now government has to only carry out the work for widening the adjoining roads on both the sides and to construct the railway over-bridge after which the distance from Sankhali to Panaji will reduce from two hours to a mere 20 minutes.
Public Works Department Minister Sudin Dhavalikar said that in order to decrease the number of accidents, every citizen ought to co-operate with the government in building infrastructure. He said, “If the people co-operate with us then the deaths caused due to accidents which is 360 per year will come down to 200 and below.”
Dhavalikar claimed that accidents along the by-pass road of Old Goa have come down by 75 per cent during the last three years. He said that within a year’s time, the work on six lane new Banastarim bridge will be taken up. He also said that the flyover across Chimbel creek connecting Old Goa to Panaji along NH-4A will be completed by March 2018.
Dhavalikar said that the work of four-laning and expansion of NH-17 from Patradevi to Bambolim will be completed in next one and half year’s time. He said, “This NH work is of Rs 900 crore and four flyovers will be built along the stretch.”
He further said that expansion of NH-4A from Mollem to Old Goa and Loutolim to Ponda road would be completed by next year.
Dhavalikar said that the government will conduct audit of Portuguese-era bridges in the state in the next one year for which consultant agency has been nominated and the government will be spending Rs 2.30 crore from its treasury.
Power Minister Pandurang Madkaikar said that the government through GSIDC will build a market complex in Old Goa, and would prepare a master plan in order to carry out beautification work of Old Goa church premises and the Karmali lake.
Earlier in the day, the Chief Minister along with PWD Minister and Madkaikar laid the foundation stone for the work of vehicular underpass and appurtenances at Old Goa-Karmali junction road. The proposed work of providing vehicular underpass and appurtenances at Old Goa varying height from 5.71 m to 6.67 m including six lane vehicular underpass with two span of 30 mts each is for a total length of 60 mts, construction of road of 11 metre wide of 750 m length on both side and service roads/ramps 7.0 m wide, length 1420 m. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 40 crore.