Goemkarponn desk
PONDA: Fearing the 23 July last year’s flood experience in Monsoon, the locals of Khandepar and Usgao urged WRD, government officials to take lessons from last year and adopt safety measures, including desiltation wherever required in the river basin to prevent flooding of Khandepar, Ganjem river in the forthcoming Monsoon which has caused huge loss of property including collapsed of houses in flood last year.
It may be recalled that last year both the tributaries of Mhadei flowing from Sattari, Ponda Taluka created havoc at Ganjem Usgao and Khandepar, Murder, Savoiverem with several houses on Bank of river flooded, with many houses were collapsed at Ganjem Usgao and Khandepar. Even traffic and commuters on NH at Khandepar were paralysed and stranded for the entire day as roads were under flooded water of the river.
According to Environmentalist Sandeep Parkar at Khandepar, there may be several reasons for flooding but according to him is, thousands of truckload of mud was dumped in the Khandepar river basin during NH and bridge construction three years back, and following his complaint, the government had asked the contractor to remove dirt from the river basin.
However, the contractor had done a sub-standard work, and most of the mud remained in the river basin. Further, according to Sandeep Parkar, at least fifty metres of land from the riverbank should be a buffer zone as per the prevailing law. However, there are many violations against which action is needed from authorities.
Even the nullas culminating in the Khandepar river are filled with mud which needs to be desilted. All these measures, desiltation of the river should be undertaken before Monsoon to prevent incidents like flooding and house collapsed incident taking the lesson from
It may be recalled that last year the Ponda disaster Management team inspection report revealed that on 23 July, flood Ganjem-Usgao was the worst hit, followed by Khandepar and parts of Priol in Ponda Taluka with
Twenty-one families became homeless, houses were found fully damaged( collapsed), 95 partly damaged, and 310 submerged underwater. All together, total flood affected houses were 426, and a huge amount of loss.
The floods hit houses at Usgao-Ganjem, followed by Murdi-Khandepar, Khandola, Vagurme and Savoiverem. According to the Deputy Collector report, Usgao –Ganjem was the worst hit, with 231 houses affected, 15 houses fully damaged, partly damaged, and 56 and 160 houses affected due to entry of floodwater.
Luckily the MGP Party reconstructed some collapsed houses at Khandepar and provided relief to flood victims.
