Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji

Panaji, May 26: As the southwest monsoon nears Goa’s coast, the State’s crumbling roads are already revealing the alarming toll of neglect, with battered stretches, deep potholes, and incomplete excavation works threatening to turn into death traps.

In blatant defiance of Collector-issued directives banning road digging during the rainy season, key roads across Goa remain in shocking disrepair. Crucial pre-monsoon repairs and patchwork expected to be completed in the dry months — have been left untouched.

In Mapusa, the main road opposite the Goa Football Association stadium at Duler highlights this administrative apathy. A massive pothole sits dangerously mid-road, forcing locals to fill it with plastic waste and erect warning signs out of sticks and boards to avert accidents.

Over in Saligao, the route leading to Pilerne Industrial Estate, recently dug up by the electricity department for laying a 33KV line, has turned into a slushy mess. This same stretch was excavated last year by the water department. The result is year-round hardship for residents, who are once again left grappling with mud and poor mobility.

Attempts to compact the road have failed due to rainfall, and with no hotmixing on the horizon, locals expect another four to five months of unsafe and slippery travel. Similar scenes unfold in Arpora and on the CHOGM road, where the power line work has left more broken roads in its wake.

In Mapusa, despite local MLA Joshua D’Souza’s claim of a Rs 31 crore allocation for hotmixing, not a single patchwork has been carried out.

“The public will just have to endure it,” a senior PWD engineer admitted anonymously, claiming contractors have unfinished work and roads must "settle" in the rain before hotmixing — a notion road safety activists now call outdated.

A lone silver lining comes from executive engineer of PWD (NH), Jude Carvalho, who confirmed that NH-66 from Pernem to Cortalim is largely pothole-free, barring a 5.15 km construction zone at Porvorim.

Yet for most of Goa, monsoon means more potholes, traffic chaos and heightened risk for commuters. Locals and activists are calling for a long-term fix.

“If the government focused on road repairs every April and May, we wouldn’t face this nightmare each monsoon,” said Saligao resident Aurio Carvalho.

As the rains roll in, Goans brace not only for waterlogged streets, but another season of skidding, slipping and silent suffering.