MARGAO
The migrant-inhabited Azad Nagar locality of Margao municipal area found a mention in the High Court over the question of sewerage connections when the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by petitioner Antonio Alvares complaining of rampant discharge of sewage in the water bodies in the commercial capital came up for hearing on Monday.
When the authorities handling sewerage connections submitted in the court that connections to the individual houses at Azad Nagar have been pending as applications are awaited from the residents, the court is believed to have observed that the authorities should assess the amount of funds required to issue the connections.
The matter will come up for hearing again on Tuesday and the Margao municipality is expected to file a report stating how it intends to go about issuing the sewerage connections to the individual households at Azad Nagar.
The issue of individual sewage connections at Azad Nagar came into focus after the authorities submitted that the estimate for connecting the houses in the area has already been tendered and awarded on February 6, 2023, to Essel Constructions. The time allotted for the completion of work is 180 days excluding monsoons.
It was further submitted that the work of road crossing for Azad Nagar lanes has been done and run-off water of the washed utensils/kitchen wastewater which flows through the drains of the residents has been temporarily connected to the sewer network. It was, however, submitted that connections to the individual houses are pending as applications are awaited from the residents of Azad Nagar.
Meanwhile, with the Margao civic body finding itself in a tight spot on the question of issuing individual sewerage connections to the Azad Nagar locality, with fears raised that the court might direct the civic body to bear the cost of the connections, sources in the municipality informed that the civic body might ask the PWD to implement a 2022 notification, providing for recovery of sewerage connection fees as notified under the scheme from the consumers who are not willing to pay and owners of vacant flats as follows from the monthly water bills.
MMC officials told The Goan that the notification provides for recovery of sewerage connection fees from the monthly water bills of consumers in cases where individual water connections exist to each flat at the rate of Rs 150 in each bill issued during the billing cycle till the entire amount of Rs 3,000 is recovered.
The Azad Nagar locality had come into focus for the last two months after the petitioner had pointed out that wastewater from the locality finds its way to the stormwater nullahs which later emptied at the Salpem lake.
In the PIL, petitioner Antonio Alvares submitted to the court that rampant sewage discharge from individual households and commercial establishments in the absence of sewerage connections later finds its way either to the Salpem lake or the river Sal.
