MARGAO/CANACONA: Irate residents of Canacona led by Janardhan Bhandari, who contested the February 14 assembly elections on Congress ticket from Canacona, gheraoed the PWD executive engineer Dattaprasad Kamat and demanded that all pending road works on NH 66, including the newly-built Manohar Parrikar bypass at Canacona be started. They have warned of resorting to rasta roko at Canacona and at several places along the highway on March 1 if the works don’t start by then.
Later speaking to reporters, Bhandari said that regular commuters from Canacona to Margao have to face hardships owing to the bad condition of the highway at several places.
“The PWD had issued the work order to a contractor in October last year, but the work is yet to be commenced. Such is the audacity of the contractor that he has failed to reply to the letters written to him by the PWD engineer for not starting the work,” Bhandari said.
GFP’s Prashant Naik, who was also among the protesters, said that accidents on the Manohar Parrikar bypass road have become an almost daily feature. “The Manohar Parrikar bypass has become a death trap, particularly for two-wheeler riders,” he said.
Kamat told reporters that he had already given an ultimatum of 10 days to the contractor to start the work.
