VASCO
An extraordinary gram sabha was held at Cansaulim panchayat on Sunday to discuss open defecation and garbage menace and the meeting resolved to take forward phase two of solid waste management plans and ODF schemes.
Speaking to the media, social activist Simon D'Souza said that the meeting was held to discuss issues of solid waste management after the Director of Panchayat sent a memorandum to discuss with gram sabha members about funds and to form a committee to handle the garbage and open defecation issue.
"We have passed the resolution to get extra funds and machinery to make the village garbage-free and open defecation free. We have put a condition to conduct awareness programmes and not allow any more mega projects."
"The panchayat has not yet submitted a report on phase one of open defecation, and we don't know whether everyone has been provided with the allotted toilets and wonder if the scheme has been misused. We don't want to misuse any funds in phase two of the open defecation free scheme. We don't even have toilets at the beach or in the market that should have ideally been taken under panchayat funds. These toilets were a necessity to cater to tourists on the beaches and various vendors and shopkeepers in the market. The Director of Panchayats and BDO must act on the panchayat members for not having enough gram sabhas which are meant to hear people's suggestions," said Dsouza.
Resident Alex Azavedo said that there were no dustbins and no proper garbage collection being conducted in the village.
"There are no dustbins in the market or public places, and garbage is strewn along roadsides, and we don't know the frequency of waste collections. The garbage is segregated right outside the panchayat. There should be a full stop and action must be initiated on open defecation. To date, the market does not have a single toilet and we can never say that there is no open defecation in the village," said Azavedo.
Resident Jose Fernandes said that the administrator had asked the gram sabha members for support to implement phase two of the ODF scheme.
"We have informed him that phase one of ODF must be completed first before going to phase two as we fear that the funds could be misused. We must ascertain how so much garbage is coming into the village. We feel that migrants staying in rented premises are dumping garbage all around the village. These migrants and the persons renting their premises need to be warned with the strictest action," said Fernandes.
Another resident Ela Mascarenhas also spoke about the resolution to implement phase two of the ODF scheme and solid waste management plans.
"The first phase has not been properly implemented and the panchayat did not get proper funds as well. We got only Rs 2.8 lakh of the Rs 7 lakh funds. We cannot blame the panchayat. How can they work with such less funds for such a big village? The administrator has told us that a new committee will be formed to check on various dark spots of garbage, and I request the panchayat to put boards and CCTV cameras to catch the culprits of the garbage menace. The residential colonies must collect garbage and segregate it at source and hand it over to the panchayat," said Mascarenhas.
