GOA’S IRRIGATION By Valmiki Faleiro The rain gods are munificent on Goa. But alas, most of what falls from the skies goes into the Arabian Sea. Water is never more valued than in sweltering summers. Last week, yet again, South Goa went without water three days. This time, it was a power breakdown. Some sixty times in the last about 15 years, Selaulim stumbled on breakdowns of its pipeline – 60 times weaker than the straw you use with your softie. Civil engineers design dams and water supply projects. Goa, in the past, produced illustrious engineers. Like Margao’s ‘Mestre Engenheiro’ Luis Jose do Carmo Lourenco, Verna’s Juvenal da Costa who was India’s Chief Engineer, Border Roads Organisation, and dozens from the Paes clan of Bainfoll, Assolna. Seeing Goa’s modern engineering marvels, like falling bridges and bursting pipelines, they must be turning in their graves. Foresight of Goa’s first Chief Minister, DB Bandodkar, gave South Goa a panacea for its water woes: the Selaulim dam. Ironically. Because his noble but badly implemented land reforms was one reason for the further decline in agriculture. Crores went down Selaulim canals, even viaducts – to take water to fields that were long fallow or no longer existed. Dr. Wilfred de Souza, when Chief Minister, mercifully stopped that madness. By then, a few more dozen crores had been spent on a long canal, shoddily built, right down to Davorlim, on Margao’s eastern doorstep. Engineers then began figuring how to take the water across chockablock Margao, to Nuvem and coastal Salcete on the west. Some smart alec thought of a viaduct under Margao’s eastern bypass. A huge trench was dug along the entire length of the road. Only then did it dawn that the levels would take the waters not forward but in reverse direction. A small-fry engineer became a fried scapegoat. Margao choked, as the vital bypass stayed shut for some years. The contractor, almost fully paid, demanded 35 crores more, in an arbitration case. After the viaduct project was abandoned, more crores went into reinstating and re-asphalting the bypass. The job of refilling went to the same contractor. Then Irrigation Minister, Dayanand Narvenkar, a Suptd. Engineer named Mandrekar and the contractor know that queer arbitration story. Me too, but I can’t tell it. Because bolting horses don’t leave “proof” behind. Save manmade aesthetics at the dam site, nothing seems to be right with Selaulim. Thanks to unmitigated corruption, particularly from the mid-1970s. More than half of the hundreds of crores are said to have canalized into ministerial and bureaucratic pockets. Huge budgets and subterranean works made Irrigation a prized portfolio. No minister or engineer (save an exception I know) who ever worked in Irrigation ever was a pauper. Selaulim is valued more for its 160 million litres/day drinking water. It serves the greater geographical area of Goa. Its pipeline was laid largely by the influx of PWD engineers from Kerala and Karnataka, who descended on Goa after liberation. And their ‘Goenkar’ political masters. The pipe design was from precision-famous Germany. It used 4mm diameter steel bars for reinforcement, pre-stressed into the concrete body. The technology was being used for the second time in India, after Thane-Mumbai. The contract for pipes went to the Karnataka Cement Pipe Co. The pipeline was to carry water at 20- to 22-bar pressure. Serious doubts were raised over the (sub-standard) quality of pipes. But longest-served Chief Minister, Pratapsing Rane, was in a tearing hurry to “inaugurate” the pipeline, on the eve of a State Assembly election, without even testing it. Forget 20/22 bar pressure, the brand new pipeline burst at several places on its inaugural day when it was slowly pressurized to a mere four bar. It has been bursting with cyclic regularity ever since. Not a single engineer was called to question. Without a pre-commissioning test, the contractor got off easily. Technology was blamed, as in the case of the first Mandovi Bridge that fell, where Russian cantilever technology was employed. Not shoddy workmanship and shoddier supervision. No one asked why the same technology worked well in Thane. Instead, Goa’s politicos gleefully decided on a “parallel” pipeline, in expensive mild steel. Higher the costs, more the ministerial cuts. Multi-crore projects come with a ‘percentage’ tag, usually bigger than the public benefit. Thirsty South Goans feel satiated when the first drops resume in their taps every time the Selaulim pipeline breaks down. The thirst of their politicians never will. The days-long, recurrent, water misery of South Goa – like most ills that ail Goa – is the price people pay for bad governance, rooted in corruption, of the last 35 years. When political leaders are crassly corrupt, can officialdom lag far behind? (Ends.) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the June 1, 2008 edition of the Herald, Goa
