Sanvordem is just like any other village struggling with the garbage problem, which only seems to get worse, thanks to the deep-seated suspicion of people towards treatment plants. Sanvordem has decided to get tough with offenders who indiscriminately dump garbage on the road side and open spaces in the village. The issue was discussed at the gram sabha recently and the panchayat is now planning to impose fines against offenders, if they can be apprehended, that is.
Like most villages and some cities, Sanvordem does not have a garbage treatment plant. It has plans, again like most villages and cities, but cannot find place to build it. The panchayat had identified two sites,but both were rejected by the Goa State Pollution Control Board. A door-to-door collection system has been put in place for dry garbage, but residents have been told to treat wet waste on their own. The dry waste is apparently sent to Panaji, something that Ponjekars are yet to wake up to.
Sanvordem has requested Curchorem-Cacora municipality to allow it to dump wet garbage at the site used for the town and a reply is awaited. Curchorem could have been close to owning a garbage treatment plant had it showed more faith in the government. The Parrikar government had set in motion plans to construct two plants, at Saligao and Curchorem. The Saligao plant is nearing completion while the work has not commenced in Curchorem because the councillors developed cold feet.
Not far away from Curchorem and Sanvordem is the commercial city of Margao where the newly elected chairperson has declared that the garbage problem is a nightmare. It is, if you do not have a plan or the money. Margao has a treatment plant, but lacks a collection system. And for some reason the city is yet to introduce waste segregation at home. The reason is, it lacks the funds to buy bins and trucks and does not have the heart to charge Margaokars a fee for garbage collection. Many panchayats have implemented door-to-door collection, but disposal of waste is contracted out with no questions asked as to where the garbage will finally be dumped.
The city of Panaji might have a system for collection of garbage, but it is yet to construct a treatment plant, thanks to petty politics. Some years back the city experimented with an anaerobic digestor, which failed and had to be abandoned. Cuncolim and Bicholim have treatment plants, but Pernem is still grappling with the issue. And in far away Canacona the treatment plant went down in a blaze. Plans to set up a unit in Pernem to convert plastic waste into fuel is still awaiting the nod of the Pernem municipal council. Presently, plans are afoot to transport bio-medical waste to Karnataka, because setting up a unit to treat this waste is proving to be a nightmare.
Goa is in a quagmire of its own making. If a solution has evaded it for the last decade or so, it is because no government opted to take the garbage bull by the horns. It was with great difficulty that the Digambar Kamat government set up a plant at Sonsoddo and now the hope of Goa rests on the unit under construction at Saligao. If it proves successful, the State will emerge from the dark tunnel of failure into the light of hope.
