A commuter traversing along the highway at Porvorim, currently less of a road and more of a dirt track, had a narrow escape when a steel rod from one of the pillars arrowed down and pierced the windshield of the car and anchored itself on the dashboard. More than 48-hours later, the Goa government, the PWD Department or the contractor have yet to officially acknowledge the lapse, pledge to improve safety or even apologise for the lapse and the incident.
Let us be clear. This is not a case where an ordinary citizen knowingly or unknowingly placed himself/herself at risk by unauthorisedly entering a construction site. It is an incident that happened along a route that the commuting public is directed towards and one that is used by thousands of commuters every day, including pedestrians and two-wheeler riders.
The people who have been using the route and the people and businesses of Porvorim, in particular, have been crying hoarse about the shoddy nature of the service roads, which appear to be haphazardly and hurriedly built, the failure to tackle dust pollution -- an inevitable consequence of the aforementioned shoddy service roads -- as well as the narrow choke points that lead to long queues of traffic that are only set to get worse during the peak tourism days of Christmas and New Year.
While one can understand the urgency of completing the work as quickly and with as little disruption as possible, that shouldn’t come at the cost of the safety and convenience of the travelling public. Despite the issue being raised and inspections held by the local MLA and the contractors, the complaints appear to have fallen on deaf ears, and firm, dust-free, and adequate service roads have yet to be provided by the contractor.
In that sense, commuters who have been worrying about their safety from the risks of the loose road below now also have to worry about potentially lethal stuff falling from above. That the first set of issues has not been addressed nearly six months after they were raised, raises fresh questions about whether the new set of worries that commuters now face will indeed be treated with the seriousness it deserves.
Do authorities expect people to come on the street or knock on the doors of the courts before they begin doing their bounden duty in earnest? But that’s exactly what it has come to. It was a similar story for the smart city works that have been plaguing the capital city for the better part of the last two years with the High Court having to intervene.
Does that mean that the average commuter now has to fend for himself with little recourse should something untoward befall him/her from either above or below? It is imperative that the contractor publicly acknowledge the lapses and publicly announce the steps they are going to take to ensure that there is no chance of it happening in the future.
Or are we to accept and resign to our fate that no one cares for the hardships and risks faced by the common man despite there being readily available safety standards that can easily be implemented?
