Vasco’s garbage dump violates CRZ yet the Town Council does not acknowledge it as a problem
It is the mostbizarre of sights, a hospital overlooking a garbage dump. For Dr. D. P.Kudalkar, a trip to his hospital is a routine nightmare. Bats and kites glideoutside the Children’s Ward windows and rabid stray dogs barkat each passingAmbulance. “The first casualty of the foul odor is the patients admitted inhospital but the greater scare is them inhaling methane gas when the garbagedumps catchesfire”, says Kudalkar, Chief Medical Officer, Mormugao Port Trust’s100 bedded hospital.
Though Vasco pridesitself for being the first municipality to have a solid treatment plant, thefact remains that its status is no different from any other major town in Goa.The waste treatment facility that converts the City’s 20+ ton garbage intomanure by all means is exemplary. Yet all is not well with Vasco’s WasteTreatment Plant. Tons of untreated municipal solid waste pile one over anotherwith no sign of treatment. “We have not been treating this garbage only dumpingit” say officials at the Mormugao Municipal Council’sTechnical Department. Thisdumping is in direct violation of a High Court Order of 16th August2010 that stopped landfilling at the site.
“From the bestmunicipality to managesolid waste to the worst one, things are getting bad atSada”, rues former Municipal Engineer John Abreu. The Garbage facility fallssquarely in CRZ 1 zone where it is on a cliff overlooking Arabian Sea. Onmultiple occasions, MMC personnel have not only pushed excess garbage over thecliff but also set the dumps on fire. The smoke consisting of microbes andlethal gases blows towards the MPT Hospital and nearby Wards of Vasco. “Wedonot deny that people of MPT colony are not suffering from the foul odor of garbagedumps” admits MMC Chairperson SaritaPalkar. But her only answer to Vasco’sgarbage imbroglio is that the local MLA would be soon getting a new plantupgraded.
Interestingly, evenas Vasco keeps on accumulating garbage from the City and two neighbouringpanchayats,the Council is not concerned by the prospect of its’ lone dumping site closingdown. On one hand it violates CRZ Act 1991, on the other it wants to upgradethe facility with an incinerator that will bring in more smoke into homes ofpeople in Sada. “Atleast we had garbage being sorted and processed into manure.With more waste piling and the residue being incinerated, MMC seems to be seton choking us all”, says Ganesh Thapa residing in neighboring MMTC Colony.
