Rajan Parrikar wrote: "As CCP Councillor, Bharati Heble should have been first attending to the large puddle of raw sewage in front? of?Dr. Dhume's home in St. Inez, right in her front yard. But turning Goa into a slum is something our elected officials have gotten good at, so I can understand why? Ms Heble would?ignore the sewage and focus on? sartorial issues instead."
------------------------------------- My response: This is to set the records straight as the above are gross and serious misrepresentation of facts. No sooner did Dr Dhume call me up, I (as Secretary of the Ward Level Committee) immediately lodged a complaint with the PWD's Sewage Department as Sewage problems do not come under the purview of the CCP. As the Department did not resolve the complaint that day, I personally got the concerned engineer to the site the next morning, spent close to an hour with him, discussing the whole issue and other problems with some other citizens of that area(especially the shop owners who were the main ones being affected there). The concerned Engineer, Charles De Souza, who was kind enough to give us his personal attention, got these Sewage problems duly sorted out immediately. As such, the allegations made above against the Councilor, my mother, are utterly false, frivolous and baseless. While we are on this issue, it is also pertinent to point out that the "Sewage issue" is a huge crisis which the whole city faces today and such problems are occurring everywhere in the city. This is because the amount of Sewage that is being generated is far greater than the existing Plant's capacity. For 5 long years, the ruling CCP Council did virtually nothing about it. It is only now, a couple of months back, that a proposal has been sent to the Central Ministry under the JNNURM Scheme for the upgradation of the Sewage Treatment facilities. The rest of the writer's post does not merit much attention. regards Sandeep
