Goa: Several villages in tourist hotspot Calangute go dry – without tapped water during Ganesh Chaturthi

PANAJI: Several villages or waddos in the high-profile tourist belt of Calangute in North Goa, had a ‘dry’ Ganesh Chaturthi, as there was not a drop of tapped water available and all taps in the locality were dry for days on end.

Residents claim the problem has been going on for more than 35 to 40 days, after the PWD department dug up roads to lay a new pipeline and affected more than 100 to 120 families in the area.

Not just that, in spite of Goa receiving above average rains this year, the villagers of Naikawaddo in Calangute claimed their wells were running dry and there was only muddy, non-potable water in the wells, which at best could be only used for washing vehicles.

The villagers are forced to manually carry drinking water from neigbouring areas, or depend on water tankers, which are unreliable.

Anushka Kerkar a resident of Naikawaddo, said the villagers had complained to the Goa PWD department several times, but there was no solution for their water woes.

“We met our MLA Michael Lobo, who is a minster in the Goa Cabinet and he telephoned the engineers, who assured us that the water supply would be restored to the area, but even a week later, our taps are dry and there is no tapped water available in the locality.

The Calangute sarpanch Shawn Martins admitted the problem has been going on for the last one month and there is a huge shortage or scarcity of tapped water, as a new pipeline is being laid.

Martins who discussed the issue with the water department said the problem would be sorted out within a week, but residents claim it’s been over a month since their water woes began.

Residents claim they had to go begging for water during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival to houses in nearby areas or pay from their own pockets for water tankers.

They rubbished the Goa CM’s scheme of offering 16000 liters of free water to each household, saying that we haven’t got even one liter of water, forget about getting 16,000 liters of tapped water free each month.