It’s almost a year since the garbage treatment plant in Cuncolim stopped working, a situation that reflects poorly on the civic body whose duty it is to ensure that waste is properly segregated and composted. If the out-going municipal council failed to repair it, the new council, which took oath in the first week of November, is equally guilty of neglecting the problem. Reports state that the new council is engaged in a war with the chief officer and one of the fallouts is that the plant has remained unattended. The council and the chief officer have been pointing fingers at each other instead of pooling their energies towards resolving the problem. The situation is made worse by the inability of the council to introduce segregation of source. With door-to-door collection in place, segregation should have been the next logical step. Unfortunately this has not happened. Consequently, garbage continues to pile up at the treatment yard and if nothing is done now, this town in Salcete might have to face a Sonsodo-like problem in the future.
The failure of the Cuncolim Municipal Council places a question mark over transfer of powers under the 74th amendment. Grassroot level leaders have been demanding more powers, but with more power comes more responsibility and what is playing out in Cuncolim reinforces the general belief that municipal councils are not capable of undertaking certain duties and therefore, need monitoring by the government. The Margao municipal council is facing a similar problem. It has a garbage treatment plant but segregation at source is turning out to be an impossible task. The council blames the government and the government points an accusing finger at the council. The truth is, garbage collection, treatment and disposal is an issue that ought to be tackled by the council with expert help and finance from the government. In other words, the government through the Directorate of Municipal Administration will act as a supervisory body, while the grunt work will have to be done by the council. Sadly, the municipal councils of Margao and Cuncolim are yet to wake up to their responsibilities and for that reason, garbage collection and treatment continues to challenge them.
There are ways and means of resolving the Cuncolim garbage problem, but for a solution to arise the chief officer and the council will have to work in tandem. More importantly, the council has to revive the maintenance contract with the Pune-based company and ensure that an engineer is dispatched to fix the plant. The vice-chairperson has been authorized by the council to take charge of the plant and resolve the issue but the fact that the present council did nothing for five months hangs like a sword over the vice-chairman and the garbage monitoring cell which also failed to live up to its name. Five years ago when the Rs 1.6 crore plant was inaugurated it was hailed as a model for other cities and towns to emulate. It has a capacity to treat 1.5 metric tonnes of garbage per day. In 2011 the council was given an annual grant of Rs 28 lakh and two compactors to collect and treat garbage. Unfortunately, it seems to be a case of a lot of money down the drain, thanks to utter mismanagement and neglect of an important civic obligation. The Cuncolim municipal council needs to pull up its socks and prove that it is capable of remedying the situation or else people might start losing faith in the concept of devolution of power to grassroot level institutions.
