Goemkapronn desk
CANACONA: The 150 Metre stretch of Poingnuinim-Galgibaga has remained largely inundated in flood water for the last 15 days and has posed a severe threat to the age-old Culvert Bridge weakened and is likely to break any moment if the flooding is not corrected very soon.
Locals fear the Culvert-bridge which is a connecting factor between Poinguinim Bazaar-Magdal (Galgibaga) and further has dangerously weakened and even the PWD engineer has anticipated its fall at any moment in future.
Incidentally, the Galgibaga river flowing parallel to the 150 metres link road passing through paddy fields floods the entire paddy field on its western side, and overflows over the road storming the already flooded eastern-side paddy fields, bringing undue pressure on the already old and weakened culvert situated at the northern-end of the link road. Through this link road, the floodwater storms back into the Galgibaga River.
According to a seating panch of Poinguinim Village Satish Painguinkar, the WRD constructed a Retaining-Wall on the edge of western–side paddy fields along the river bank has blocked the natural Flood-water passage, which instead gets blocked and overflows submerging the link-road (Poinguinim-Galgibaga road).
“This situation (flooding of either side and submerging of this road) has been witnessed for the last 15 days, causing all the troubles for the local people. A team of WRD and PWD (Highways) engineers visited the site, and when I asked the engineers, the engineer agreed that the life of the culvert was over, it had become weak and it could break at any moment. So, the government must give immediate attention to this road,” he said.
Painguinkar informed that the widening and up-gradation of this 150 metres road has been pending for a long time now, and if the regular flooding and submerging of this road is to be avoided, the Culvert –bridge has to be re-constructed in an elevated position. Besides the height of this long road needs to be raised at least some metres above the present level to avoid flooding.
“We are told that this 150-metre road will be widened by 12 metres, but its height needs to be compulsorily elevated and then reconstruct the old and life-passed culvert bridge to a wider and heightened level to allow free passage of flood-water into the rive,” he said.
