PANJIM NEEDS TO BE REVIVE BY STEPHEN DIAS 6 DONA PAULA 9422443110 26th February 2023
The city of Panjim was once superior to most of other cities in India, sadly it has become one of the worst currently. Many leaders who are non qualified are meddling with the organisation with the city affairs without experience. Many of those leaders who are in the CCP panel have vast experience but they were shunted out or not been consulted and not even taken into confidence in matters of improvement of the city. A new comer who is dictating terms in the CCP suddenly decided the city needs to revive by digging all the roads in Panjim. The old types of government department cables which were deployed haphazardly in one drain, are been put now into a big diameter pipes without analysing which department these cables belong to. This will certainly create a huge problem once any fault occurs and once again digging will have to start for detecting the fault. The actual pioneers of building this city started in the year of 1542 during the tenure of Bishop Gaspar Leao Pereira and the city went on improving with other leaders who took also the initiative and managed the welfare of the city until the Portuguese came to Goa. The Portuguese also continued to look after the city and achieved more progress. I was told they have left some documents and plans of how the storm water drains were routed to reach the River Mandovi. But these plans have never been followed in current times and seem to be missing. I remember during my childhood they made trenches or drains near Esso petrol pump at Portais, Fontainhas near Archives, at Old Pwd office, Congress House, one more near Custom house, another near Collectorate, BAL Bhavan and lastly at Miramar. Since the digging has been executed haphazardly recently all over the city I expect the exact positions to be drawn in their map by Contractors to be submitted to the City Corporation of Panjim for all Panjimite to see. I have just noticed yesterday a duct near the Printing Press when the excavation was going on by the current contractors and I casually questioned the supervisors and one engineer present at the scene about a open visible duct there. I asked where this is routed. The engineer told me that this is going to River Mandovi. I asked how he came to know and he claimed that he put a wire and saw that it goes to the river. I asked whether he really had such a long and thick wire but he didn't like my questioning and left the site with his team. What is my point is if this trench had to reach the river then it would have to pass below the Printing Press building, Police Headquarters and the Institute Menezes Braganza building. Since these buildings appears to be constructed much later, no maintenance was possible and surely must have been clogged. The current contractors might have seen several similar trenches or drains all along where they are been digging in Panjim and unfortunately I don't think they have been keeping a record of such trenches if they have come across. We are missing a fantastic opportunity to identify the old drainage system that may help fix flooding issues and may help prevent subsidence issues. I am sure if the present records are not maintained the situation will aggravate and future leaders in the CCP are going to face even more problems. I supposed whatever digging work has been done and pipes laid down, hopefully the drawing records will be available and not disappear as the Portuguese records seem to have. Will they keep these for the public scrutiny in case Panjimites would like to see? Stephen