Slight respite to motorists

VASCO: With repair works on the Panaji-Margao highway taken up, the traffic situation eased slightly on Friday.

The public works department has started work of filling up the deep potholes on the Agassaim and Cortalim stretches of the highway resulting in some sort of relief to motorists, who said that the situation was better on Friday as compared to the traffic jams witnessed on the stretch for the past four to five days.

Office goers, students and taxi operators who regularly travel on the stretch witnessed a slight improvement in the flow of traffic on Friday. “It could be due to the filling of the potholes on Agassaim side,” said Raju Harijan of New Vaddem, who travelled to Panaji on Friday to attend an interview for a technical post at the Kadamba Transport Corporation Limited. Taxi operators from the Dabolim airport also found some improvement in the flow of traffic on Friday.

Speaking to this daily, Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Dinraj Govekar said, “We have witnessed much improvement in traffic movement on Friday as compared to the last four days. Actually there is no problem in the traffic movement from Verna to Agassaim stretch via Cortalim junction and Zuari bridge. The problem was created only because of the potholes that have developed on the stretch from the Agassaim police station to the Agassaim bypass, around 200-metre stretch. The traffic movement had slowed down only because of the potholes.”

He said that platoons of Indian Reserve Batallion personnel have been deployed at various points from Verna to Agassaim in addition to the existing traffic police personnel to regulate traffic.