Panaji: Panaji mayor Rohit Monserrate on Wednesday said that a consultant will soon be appointed to prepare a comprehensive plan for the rejuvenation of St Inez creek. A multi-departmental approach is being adopted to develop a long-term master plan for cleaning and restoring the creek, he said.
“For preparing the master plan, a consultative process will be adopted with active public participation. There are many issues related to the creek – sewage influx, garbage, etc. We need to prepare a DPR with a comprehensive plan for which we have to appoint a consultant to identify every single point of sewage ingress,” Monserrate said.
He was speaking after an inter-departmental meeting called by the state government at the Secretariat, Porvorim, on the rejuvenation of water bodies in Panaji.
The meeting was chaired by Secretary (Revenue) Sandip Jacques and attended by officials of Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Limited (IPSCDL), Public Works Department (PWD), Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP), Water Resources Department (WRD), and Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA), among others.
Monserrate said a timeline of about six months has been set to complete departmental procedures and appoint a consultant.
“We have a consultant from Chennai who worked on a similar project there. They had similar issues like that of Panaji. To tackle it, they took a comprehensive approach and involved the local corporation and other departments. I visited Chennai to see the difference, and it is huge,” he said, adding that Chennai has explored solutions such as replanting mangroves and creating biodiversity parks as part of a long-term plan.
He said the consultant will be asked to take Mala Lake, Lake View Colony Lake, and issues related to Taleigao under a single estimate.
“We want to give people realistic expectations. This is everyone’s responsibility—not just the government,” he said, adding, “There are certain areas where there are no sewerage connections; in some areas, there is no possibility of connections because there is no space. Why we want a consultant on board is to look at each of these areas.”
He said that there are no sewage connections in Camrabhat, while at Bandh, people are recently connected but still release sewage into the creek.
