Goemkapronn desk
CANACONA: Don’t be mistaken to drive or ride on the other side of the road whenever you see the Bollard Barriers or the Spring Post-Barriers while riding on Canacona roads. You could easily land down in a rivulet below!
PWD (NH) engineers have placed The Spring Post-Barriers with reflective tapes normally used as Road-Dividers to give road safety directions on the side of Gulem bridge on NH-66 road in place of the broken bridge railings.
The Gulem bridge on NH66 near Hotel Sudarshan has its side railings on either side of the culvert bridge broken and destroyed, now almost years ago, and since then, the bridge has had no safety on either side, posing a serious threat of vehicles falling down into the Gulem rivulet below.
PWD (NH) has come with a novel idea of securing the bridge sides by placing the reflective Bollard
Incidentally, the same reflective plastic Spring Post-Barriers have been placed in the middle of the Road, dividing the one-way road lanes on NH66 road from Navelim to Canacona, since recently.
According to a source in the PWD, the Spring Posts play an important role and are necessary when you must divert/guide traffic sound and safe and provide the necessary directions, besides warning of approaching hazards.
‘These reflective posts are fitted in place of the broken railing, may not stop any vehicles going over the bridge, but are fitted to warn the motorists of safety hazards beyond the posts.’
The same source added, ‘No one should consider these posts as road-dividers and attempt to proceed beyond the posts, but should safely ride/+-drive on the road itself to avoid fall over the culvert bridge’, when informed whether motorists won’t mistake the Spring Poles as lane dividers, and the same posts are used for guiding road traffic/Lane-marking on NH66.
Incidentally, in the past, a few vehicles, including Cars and 2-wheelers, had gone over this bridge and fallen down the dried-up river bed. (This non-perennial Gulem rivulet becomes active only after the Chapoli dam overflows during monsoons).
