MARGAO
Discharge of the treated sewage waters from the Colva Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) has been an issue the PWD and Goa Sewerage Corporation had to grapple with in the last 10 years, every time Benaulim constituency witnesses a change of guard over the last 10 years.
When work on the STP was conceptualised and being executed during the tenure of the former Benaulim MLA Caitu Silva, the plant was designed to discharge the treated sewage into the Arabian Sea.
Following a change of guard in 2017, when Nationalist Congress Party MLA Churchill Alemao took over the reigns of office, the new MLA got the government to scrap the proposal to discharge the treated sewage water into the Arabian Sea after the local tourism stakeholders feared that discharging the water into the Arabian Sea would spell doom for tourism in the village.
It was after the government agreed to concede to the demand of the Benaulim MLA to scrap the proposal to discharge the treated waters into the Arabian Sea, the Corporation came out with an alternate proposal to release the water into the river Sal near the Khareband bridge.
Newly-elected MLA, Venzy Viegas, who has wrested the Benaulim seat from Churchill Alemao, has now come out with an alternate proposal to the government “ store the sewage treated water in a storage tank and make the hotels and industry to use the water for its needs.
Given that the new MLA has now come out with a new proposal for disposal of treated sewage water, it is feared that the commissioning of the Colva STP may be delayed for some time before a solution is found out to the disposal of the treated sewage waters.
