Machines and vehicles on the job at the Sosnodo legacy dump to transport RDF to the cement factories in Karnataka.
MARGAO
Every morning, the Margao Municipal Council has performed a daily ritual without fail since last year – transporting trucks loads of city garbage to the Saligao waste treatment plant and the Cacora waste treatment plant for treatment.
However, the ritual comes at a huge price, with the cost of transportation, pegged around Rs 12-13 lakh a month, throwing up a serious question for the Margao City Fathers, municipal babus and the powers that be controlling the civic body – has the municipality any plan to set up a waste treatment mechanism in place to treat the 30 tonnes of wet waste generated in the commercial capital and save the huge cost of waste transportation to the Saligao and Cacora plants?
Thanks to the High Court's intervention, things seemed slowly and steadily falling in place at Sonsodo over the last few months of 2023, but a solution on the treatment of waste seemed to have eluded the Margao civic body to date, raising a question of whether the commercial capital will have its own waste treatment plant at least in 2024 to dispose of the 30 tonnes of the waste generated in the city.
Land is no longer an issue to set up a modern waste treatment plant with the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) almost completing the remediation of the Sonsodo legacy dump. The GWMC has also embarked upon the job – the third time in as many years – to cart out the piled-up waste inside the Sonsodo waste management shed to pave the way for the utilisation of the shed for waste treatment.
Presently, the Margao municipality does not treat a single tonne of wet waste generated in the city. The 5-TPD biomethanation plant at the SGPDA wholesale fish market is presently shut over environmental issues.
Proposal for 15-TPD plant submitted, ball is now in MMC's court: GWMC
When Sonsodo came under the High Court scanner in mid-2023 following an unprecedented waste management crisis, the government handed out an assurance that the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) would work out a plan of action to set up a waste treatment plant in Margao.
The GWMC has finally submitted a proposal to the Margao Municipal Council to set up a 15-tonne waste treatment plant at Sonsodo at an estimated cost of Rs 17 crore.
GWMC Managing Director Levinson Martins said that the corporation has submitted details of the plant and the estimated cost, saying it is now for the civic body to take a call if they want to take the proposal forward.
What’s next, is a question that may come to stare at the Margao Municipal Council, whether the civic body would go for the GWMC proposal or have any alternate plan up its sleeves to dispose of the daily 30 tonnes of waste generated in the city.
“The GWMC has prepared the plan and the estimate for the proposal of 15-TPD plant for Margao. The ball now lies in the court of the MMC to take a call and move forward,” Martins said.
Is 15-TPD plant enough to handle city’s waste?
Will a 15-TPD waste treatment plant be sufficient to meet the requirements when the commercial capital generates around 30 tonnes of wet waste every day?
Well, GWMC Managing Director Levinson Martins informed that the Corporation has planned a 15-TPD waste treatment plant for the city taking into consideration that the MMC has set up a 5-TPD biomethanation plant and that the civic body will make use of the Sonsodo waste management shed to treat the daily garbage via the windrow method as and when the piled up waste is carted out from the shed and remediate.
Indeed, the ongoing job of carting out the piled-up waste from the Sonsodo waste treatment shed may be over within the next 2-3 months, throwing up a question or two to the Margao municipality on how it intends to put the imposing shed to use.
Given that the proposed 15-TPD or any other waste treatment plant cannot take shape overnight, and may take months or a year to put the system in place, the MMC will have to decide on a crucial question whether it will put the Sonsodo waste treatment shed to use by treating the daily waste during the intervening period, or prefer to continue sending the daily waste to the Saligao and Cacora waste treatment plants by spending lakhs of rupees every month.
