Finally, Goa installs gate at border bridge

Keshav Naik
Mapusa: Goa has now installed an excise department border-check gate at the Kiranpani–Aronda bridge connecting Goa to Maharashtra.
There were serious allegations that liquor is being illegally traded along the bridge as there is no checkpoint while crossing the state.
There is no checkpost of Goa police, forest department or the transport department at the state border.
Since the liquor rates are cheap in Goa as compared to Maharashtra, illicit trade takes place.Sources said that it increased after the inauguration of the bridge in March 2013.
The absence of a border gate on the Goa side was in the news when three persons were arrested after 30kg of meat, suspected to be venison, was seized from their possession by forest officials.
The meat was brought into the state through the Kiranpani -Aronda bridge which has a gate towards the Aronda side managed by Maharashtra police.
Though the bridge connects the two states, there is no border gate on the Goa side of the border.
Connectivity was, earlier, through the ferry service which was a limitation to a free and continuous transport. Sources said that liquor is also transported to neighbouring Maharashtra through canoes after crossing the Terekhol river to avoid a check by authorities.
Sources said that during nights, sand is illegally being transported through the bridge route. Since, there is no check on the bridge, the transporters avoid paying transport cess which they have to pay to the mines department.
In the absence of the check post, vehicles from Maharashtra also enter the state through the Kiranpani–Aronda bridge freely escaping the entry toll.
Since, there is no toll post at this entry point, many vehicles use this route to enter Goa and connect to MDR 18, which then joins the national highway at Karaswada through Siolim putting extra pressure on the narrow roads of this stretch. Locals say that interstate transport of heavy vehicles should be through highways and not the narrow roads of the villages.
Before the bridge was built, all the vehicles entered Goa from Patradevi though national highway 17.