PANAJI: Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said he has set his mind on deadlines of Swachh Bharat and will “bulldoze if necessary” to meet both -- garbage collection as well as open defecation.
“It was embarrassing for me that 72,000 houses in Goa do not have toilets. When I went to some schools I asked some women, what do they ‘do’. They said we go to the woods at 4 am. What are they to do the whole day? Have we thought about this?” Parrikar who was speaking during a visit to the offices of The Goan Everyday and Goan Varta said.
“I will do it. I’ll see how it doesn’t happen. I’ll bulldoze everything. We have already started working on it. There are many challenges -- one is money that is tied up so that issue does not exist. I’ll pump in Rs 300 crores… Central government contribution is about 11 per cent so about Rs 33 crore will come from the Centre. We have to contribute... Be it 1-2-4 thousand. A small contribution, it’s not going to be free,” Parrikar said.
“The second challenge is identifying a supplier. There are no suppliers who will supply 70,000 toilets, so you have to go for eight or ten of them. A mechanism of transparent costing has to be worked out. And the last is the land,” Parrikar said.
On waste collection, Parrikar said his targets of making the State plastic-free were real. “Earlier mixed waste was dumped and forgotten. Today, we have to segregate it. If we don’t work out a mechanism, it will never happen,” Parrikar said.
“I’m going for total ban on PVC-based or plastic carry bags. We will have to find a solution for milk sachets,” he said adding the State will distribute more than 5 lakh carry bags “before we start the plastic ban so every family can at least have one.”
