Panaji: After a team led by public works department (PWD) minister Ramkrishna Dhavalikar returned from an official visit to Portugal, Dhavalikar said that work under the MoU signed with a wing of the ministry of environment in Portugal will begin at Opa from the first week of January. The work will help analyse data of the Opa water treatment plant, which supplies water to Tiswadi and Ponda talukas. The data will later be used to maximise the plant’s efficiency.Efforts, under the MoU, will also be made to reduce the level of manganese in Selaulim dam reservoir experienced during the monsoon.“The MoU was signed in September this year by Goa PWD with Agaus de Portugal, which is a 100% subsidiary company of Portugal. After our visit to the water supply and sewerage plant, their engineers will now come to Goa in January. We have set up a technical committee under our PWD chief engineer Uttam Parsekar. Their engineers will hold discussions with our committee on the shortcomings of our water management system and the road ahead will be decided,” Dhavalikar said.In the first phase, starting January, an assessment of existing Selaulim water supply project and Opa project will be done.“This will include upgradation of Selaulim and Opa to SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition). Asset management procedures, energy efficiency and existing monitoring system will also be improved,” he said.In the second phase, a software tool for decentralised sewage system will be taken up on pilot basis for Valpoi town.“Agaus de Portugal already has a software, which they agreed to customise for Goa,” Dhavalikar said. Capacity building of staff of the water and sewerage management systems in Goa will also be done by the body in Portugal.“All the pipelines in Portugal are of stainless steel. Here, we have come challenges. We still have 40-year-old AC pipelines. We cannot afford to replace them with stainless steel ones as our water is provided to the consumer at Rs 2.50, which requires a cost of Rs 12 to treat. So our PWD is actually in loss. In Portugal, if water is treated for Rs 12, it will be sold to the consumer for Rs 15 to 16. So they are making sufficient profits,” Dhavalikar said.The minister said during his Portugal visit he also interacted with Goan diaspora there at an event organised by Casa de Goa. PWD principal chief engineer Parsekar, chief secretary Dharmendra Sharma, and PWD engineers Milind Bhobe and Santosh Bhimagaude, were part of the team that visited Portugal.

Stay updated with all the Latest Goa headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.