Stories on the chaos inflicted, quality of work and whether the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL) and its contractors will beat the March 31 deadline or not are flooding the media space these days.
What however has skipped the attention of all and sundry is a 1.4-kilometre stretch of road hugging the Ourem creek which was to be made a 'smart road' but there is no sign of it yet.
The IPSCDL had embarked on this project back in 2021. Four stretches of roads were to be taken up to be developed into 'smart roads' at a total cost of Rs 120 crore. These included: 1) In St Inez from the Taj Vivanta (Sotree) junction to the Goa International Hotel at Tonca; 2) Bal Bhavan to the Madhuban Complex via the Caculo Mall junction; 3) An internal stretch between Tonca junction at the western end of the St Inez Catholic cemetery to the Madhuban Complex via the crematorium and 4) A 1.4-km stretch along the Rua de Ourem creek from the Old Patto bridge right up to the Four Pillars junction past Neuginagar.
Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) was entrusted to execute the project and the tender was won by Bagkiya Constructions Pvt Ltd, and was issued the work order to start with work on all these four stretches of roads.
They first started with the stretch between Bal Bhavan and the Madhuban complex and most of the work was completed without much inconvinience to the public as it was during the pandemic.
It was the second stretch between the Taj Vivanta junction to the Goa International Hotel at Tonca-Caranzalem where most of the problems were faced when work was in progress. Vehicles sinking and tilting as roads were caving in and massive traffic logjams.
According to engineers and officials who were overseeing the work, the contractors faced massive difficulties trying to map the underground utility cables and pipelines, causing the work to progress at a snail's pace.
Water pipelines, electricity cables, optical fibre cables, gas pipelines, telephone lines criss-cross underground along Panaji's streets and none of these were mapped. The 'smart roads' work involves building common utility ducts for all these cables and pipes which lie underground before laying the concrete road surface.
As of date, work to convert three of the four stretches of roads into smart roads is complete but there is no sign of the fourth -- Rua de Ourem -- getting its 'smart road' avtaar in sight.
According to GSUDA officials, sewerage work along this road is not yet completed.
"Work related to giving individual connections and linking it to the old sewerage system is still pending and there is no estimate as to when it will be completed," a senior official told The Goan.
This is one major work -- Old Patto Bridge to Neuginagar stretch of 'smart road -- that remains under a cloud and no one knows if it will even be taken up now.
It will possibly be aborted given that it is next to impossible to execute before the March 31 deadline imposed for all smart city works by the Central government.
