Canacona: With no sign of hotmixing of roads which were damaged during the extended monsoon rains, the jetpatcher has gone to the rescue in the interior roads of Canacona.
The jetpatcher has been seen attending to a number of damaged roads in Agonda.
Repair work of damaged roads due to extended monsoon still in limbo
“Most of our roads are damaged during the extended monsoons. Though most of these roads are pending for repair and black-topping, nothing seems to be moving in the right direction to execute these works,” said Agonda Sarpanch Preettal Fernandes, while speaking to The Goan during the supervision of one of the road-repair works in the presence of local Panch Ramnath Velip at Karashir Moll in Agonda. “We are in December now, and people are justifiably getting restless.”
With many residents placing their hopes on her, Fernandes has been working overtime to address growing complains from residents. The young sarpanch managed to get the jetpatcher to repair potholes in different parts of the village.
Beginning with the badly dilapidated Panchayat road, the jetpatcher repaired the entire MDR road passing through Agonda village and the village interior main beach road. Following directions of the sarpanch, the jetpatcher has turned to repair other pothole-filled roads in the village.
Inefficiency to complete the task
Incidentally, with entire tarred surfaces missing from the roads, the Jatpatcher has turned into a road-tarring machine in many places. “It is difficult to repair the badly damaged roads with a jetpatcher, since the jetpatcher is supposed to only cover the potholes. But most roads in the village need extensive repairs,” said Fernandes.
“A jetpatcher can carry materials sufficient to repair a maximum of 25 metres of road length, and with most roads needing patch works of over 10-15 metres at every length, the material gets exhausted within an hour, making the task of attending to potholed roads a very different proposition.”
“But still we are doing our bit to get the maximum roads repaired by whatever services PWD (roads) are extending to us. We, however, urgently need allotment of tenders and work orders for the road repair proposals submitted though the panchayat to the PWD.”
While the jetpatcher has been providing services in most of the areas of Canacona taluka on numerous occasions, the machine has visited Agonda village alone over a dozen times in the last two months.
