The High Court's direction to the Margao Municipal Council to send at least 20 metric tonnes of wet waste from Sonsodo to the Cacora waste treatment plant should be a welcome relief to the civic body, which is currently struggling with garbage disposal. Earlier, the court had told the municipality to transport daily wet waste to the Saligao treatment plant, a directive that did not go down well with stakeholders and locals there.
However, this court directive to send the garbage to Cacora, which is currently undergoing trials, made complete sense, although nobody took the initiative or showed courage to set it in motion. The court had to point out that the Cacora plant in its trial run needed more garbage and that the Sonsodo waste is ideally suited for that.
For now, 20 mt will be sent to Cacora, 10 mt will go to Saligao, and 5 mt will be treated at the SGPDA plant. The staggered version of the Sonsodo garbage treatment plan may sound strange, but it is the best possible option under the circumstances and against the backdrop of the Saligao plant running nearly at capacity processing waste from several areas of North Goa. Moreover, reducing the trips to Saligao would save the municipality substantial transportation costs. Rough estimates showed that the MMC spent around 25-30 thousand rupees daily to transport garbage. Treating at the Cacora plant, which is not even getting 20 mt of waste against its capacity of 100 mt, will not only help MMC cut down the transportation distance since it is barely 15 km away but even trips will be reduced with compactors coming in.
The question is, why did the Minister for Waste Management, Atanasio Monserrate, not contemplate such a decision knowing very well the situation at Sonsodo, Saligao and Cacora? In a crisis, why was 'area politics' played, putting an additional burden on Saligao when the solution was right there in Cacora? It was evident that currently, the combined garbage collection from Quepem, Curchorem, Canacona and Dharbandora, which were designated areas to send garbage to Cacora, could not even meet 25 per cent of the plant capacity. Where did the hesitancy come from?
The common grouse has been over jurisdiction in garbage treatment, with prominent citizens and political leaders contesting Sonsodo waste coming to Saligao. The Waste Management minister seems to have failed to do justice and allowed this issue to fester. Thankfully, it was due to the court's intervention that Sonsodo could get some relief.
Sonsodo will certainly get further relief after Goa Waste Management Corporation begins remediation of the 10,000 mt matured waste inside the shed, as submitted to the High Court. But the problems are far from over. MMC will have to take a call on setting up its own plant in the long run. For now, it has to devise fire safety arrangements at Sonsodo and report back to the court.
We hope that lessons will be learnt and the city fathers will show some intent and seriousness in expediting plans while the civic body begins transporting wet garbage to Cacora.
