An extra blog today, as we are taking a couple of days off.
We were going to Porvorim week to start haggling with the Home Office about renewing our visas; that’s another story. Just as well that other work took priority and prevented us. Someone has been dumping rubbish (a perennial problem here) on top of a hill by the NH17 national trunk road running from Bombay to Trivandrum along the west coast, which is the road we planned to take. The road is always very busy. The hill has collapsed across half of it causing morer chaos than usual. And then the politicians get in the way as well. Read on:
PORVORIM, SEPT 7 — Poor traffic management by authorities during the rush hour led to total traffic chaos along the highway at Porvorim on Friday.
Confusion began when Deputy Collector Mahesh Khorjuvekar, Additional Collector Swapnil Naik and SP (Traffic) Atmaram Deshpande visited the excavation site at the Porvorim hillock and asked Traffic police to close the highway from Porvorim pump to Mandovi bridge, to safeguard motorists passing along the excavation site.
As a result, Panjim-bound traffic was diverted via Britona and Malim, and the narrow interior roads were hopelessly inadequate to handle the surge in traffic leading to the bridge. Absence of traffic cops along the interior roads added to further confusion among motorists, many of whom were unfamiliar with the detour and ended up driving in circles.
To make matters worse, a Siolim-bound bus descending from the Betim slope rammed into a scooter, injuring the rider and bringing the severely affected traffic to a grinding halt for a long time.
Further disarray ensued later at about 1 pm, when Opposition Leader Manohar Parrikar, Mapusa MP Francis D’Souza and Saligao MP Deelip Parulekar, were stopped near the ACDIL high school due to the barricades.
They confronted ASI (Traffic) S Dhawaskar on duty, to protest about the road closure. The three legislators then removed the barricades and proceeded towards Panjim. They then removed a second set of barricades near Sai Service, forcibly opening the road to traffic.
Porvorim police reported the matter to PWD officials and excavation work at the site was stopped, for fear that boulders and mud could slide down on the motorists using the Mapusa-Panjim section of the highway at the site.
ASI Dhawaskar later filed a police complaint against Parriker, D’Souza and Parulekar for obstructing him from performing duties and endangering the lives of the public. Porvorim police has registered a complaint under Sections 186 and 336 IPC.
