PANAJI: Water from dams will be released for agriculture activities from November 14 onwards and there will be no shortage of drinking water, said minister for water resources Subhash Shirodkar, on Thursday. He added that two dams will be taken up in Dharbandora and work on them will be started soon. Shirodkar said that water from six dams was usually released by November-end or in December, but when he visited Sanguem and Quepem recently, farmers requested him to release water on time to take up agriculture activities. Stating that the dams have sufficient raw water, Shirodkar said that seven talukas in Goa depend on agriculture and around 8,000 farmers are involved in farming activities. "Post-Covid, Goan youth have taken up agriculture and horticulture," he said. "In February and March, we have to judiciously use water for drinking as the Maharashtra government is likely to take up repair work of the Tillari canal to resolve the breach issue," the WRD minister said, adding that the WRD will store Tillari dam water to avoid shortage to Porvorim.
PANAJI: Water from dams will be released for agriculture activities from November 14 onwards and there will be no shortage of drinking water, said minister for water resources Subhash Shirodkar, on Thursday. He added that two dams will be taken up in Dharbandora and work on them will be started soon. Shirodkar said that water from six dams was usually released by November-end or in December, but when he visited Sanguem and Quepem recently, farmers requested him to release water on time to take up agriculture activities. Stating that the dams have sufficient raw water, Shirodkar said that seven talukas in Goa depend on agriculture and around 8,000 farmers are involved in farming activities. “Post-Covid, Goan youth have taken up agriculture and horticulture,” he said. “In February and March, we have to judiciously use water for drinking as the Maharashtra government is likely to take up repair work of the Tillari canal to resolve the breach issue,” the WRD minister said, adding that the WRD will store Tillari dam water to avoid shortage to Porvorim.
MARGAO: More than a year ago when TOI visited 95-year old Bhomo Gaonkar at his humble dwelling located atop the hills of remote Karla village in Netravali, Sanguem, he was nursing a sepsis that had developed from a wound near his left ankle. With no access to medical facilities in the village or anywhere nearby, Gaonkar, as several others from this village, had turned to the surrounding forests for traditional herbal medicine. “There’s no way I can go to a doctor,” Gaonkar had told TOI. “I can’t walk even two steps, and no vehicle can come to our village. I am treating the wound with a herbal paste, and that has made my pain somewhat bearable.” Over six months ago he voted in the assembly election, placing his trust in democracy just the way he did in the traditional herbal medicine. The poll yielded a change as a new legislator now came to represent Sanguem. Subhash Phal Dessai who defeated independent Prasad Gaonkar is now the social welfare minister. His wound now healed, Gaonkar looks upto Phal Dessai to make the lives of future generations of the village “easier”. Phal Dessai understands Gaonkar’s plight and that of Karla village, as also of several such isolated villages on hilltops. “I have known Gaonkar since my younger days. We call him Bhomdad with reverence. The main problem is the absence of a motorable road to the village. Soon after the election, I had initiated the process of preparing tenders for the road, but the rains set in and it had to be stopped. We will do it soon.” Phal Dessai says years before he even became a legislator, he took the lead in addressing issues concerning roads, water and electricity in Karla and other villages of Sanguem “through shramdan” and using his own financial resources. “The person who would dig trenches in the village to drain out the rainwater 30 years ago, has now become their MLA. That speaks of my devotion for these villages deprived of development,” he tells TOI. Apart from the lack of a motorable access road to this village, Karla also doesn’t have even basic health facilities or a primary school. If the nearest hospital is the primary health centre at Quepem or Curchorem, nearly 25km away, the nearest primary school is at Cajur, and the nearest high school at Maina, both several kilometres away. High school students from Karla, numbering around 10, take an alternative route to get to their school — a pathway through the dense forests that takes them over forty minutes to climb down and an hour-and-a-half to trudge up the hill. Phal Dessai promises to redress all these issues of Karla and bring the village into the mainstream of development. “I have fought to ease the hardships of the locals when I was nobody, not even an MLA. I have fought with forest officials when they prevented construction of a road to Saljini (another hilltop forest village in Netravali) but saw to it that the road was done. Providing health facilities to all such remote villages is a challenge, but it will happen, slowly but surely,” the social welfare minister says. Born and brought up in Cavrem, another remote village in Quepem, tucked away in dense forests, Phal Dessai knows first-hand the travails of the inhabitants. “I remember my student days when there would be no lights in my house as electricity had not reached there, no roads for a vehicle to get to our village, and no high school either. So I know the lives of these people and the hardships they face,” Phal Dessai says, stressing that he would strive for making the lives of such people “easier.” Just the way the nonagenarian Bhomdad yearns for.
Margao: More than a year ago when TOI visited 95-year old Bhomo Gaonkar at his humble dwelling located atop the hills of remote Karla village in Netravali, Sanguem, he was nursing a sepsis that had developed from a wound near his left ankle. With no access to medical facilities in the village or anywhere nearby, Gaonkar, as several others from this village, had turned to the surrounding forests for traditional herbal medicine.“There’s no way I can go to a doctor,” Gaonkar had told TOI. “I can’t walk even two steps, and no vehicle can come to our village. I am treating the wound with a herbal paste, and that has made my pain somewhat bearable.”Over six months ago he voted in the assembly election, placing his trust in democracy just the way he did in the traditional herbal medicine. The poll yielded a change as a new legislator now came to represent Sanguem. Subhash Phal Dessai who defeated independent Prasad Gaonkar is now the social welfare minister. His wound now healed, Gaonkar looks upto Phal Dessai to make the lives of future generations of the village “easier”. Phal Dessai understands Gaonkar’s plight and that of Karla village, as also of several such isolated villages on hilltops. “I have known Gaonkar since my younger days. We call him Bhomdad with reverence. The main problem is the absence of a motorable road to the village. Soon after the election, I had initiated the process of preparing tenders for the road, but the rains set in and it had to be stopped. We will do it soon.”Phal Dessai says years before he even became a legislator, he took the lead in addressing issues concerning roads, water and electricity in Karla and other villages of Sanguem “through shramdan” and using his own financial resources. “The person who would dig trenches in the village to drain out the rainwater 30 years ago, has now become their MLA. That speaks of my devotion for these villages deprived of development,” he tells TOI. Apart from the lack of a motorable access road to this village, Karla also doesn’t have even basic health facilities or a primary school. If the nearest hospital is the primary health centre at Quepem or Curchorem, nearly 25km away, the nearest primary school is at Cajur, and the nearest high school at Maina, both several kilometers away. High school students from Karla, numbering around 10, take an alternative route to get to their school — a pathway through the dense forests that takes them over forty minutes to climb down and an hour-and-a-half to trudge up the hill.Phal Dessai promises to redress all these issues of Karla and bring the village into the mainstream of development. “I have fought to ease the hardships of the locals when I was nobody, not even an MLA. I have fought with forest officials when they prevented construction of a road to Saljini (another hilltop forest village in Netravali) but saw to it that the road was done. Providing health facilities to all such remote villages is a challenge, but it will happen, slowly but surely,” the social welfare minister says. Born and brought up in Cavrem, another remote village in Quepem, tucked away in dense forests, Phal Dessai knows first-hand the travails of the inhabitants. “I remember my student days when there would be no lights in my house as electricity had not reached there, no roads for a vehicle to get to our village, and no high school either. So I know the lives of these people and the hardships they face,” Phal Dessai says, stressing that he would strive for making the lives of such people “easier.”Just the way the nonagenarian Bhomdad yearns for.
