MARGAO
Saying he has conveyed the sentiments and anxiety of the people of Nuvem constituency over the waste management plant proposed on the Verna plateau, Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira has said Chief Minister Pramod Sawant will take a call on the plant.
Sequeira, who represents Nuvem constituency in the Goa Legislative Assembly, however, asserted that he is not going to meet the people under the banner of Concerned Citizens of Nuvem Constituency on the issue. “I am very categorical that if these people have any issue, they can come to me. But, I am not going to meet them,” Sequeira said when the media sought his comments on the allegations made by the Concerned Citizens of Nuvem Constituency.
Saying that the concerned citizens did not approach him on the issue of the garbage treatment plant, the Nuvem MLA said he had raised the issue in the Assembly, but that does not mean that these people had come to meet him. “As Nuvem MLA, I am seized of the matter. That does not mean they have approached me. I was not the MLA of Nuvem from 2012-22. But, after becoming the MLA in 2022, I have raised the issue with the government,” he said.
He added: “I have conveyed the sentiments of the people of Nuvem that they don’t want the plant. I have discussed the issue with the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister will take a call.”
Saying he has not stopped anyone from meeting him over any issue, the Minister said, “People can come and see me at the Friday darbar at the South Goa Collectorate or when I am available at my office.”
Saying the delegation of the concerned citizens of Nuvem had called on Waste Management Minister Atanasio Monserrate at the Secretariat, Sequeira told the media to ask them why they did not meet him when he was present in his chamber in the Secretariat.
He, however, declined to comment when asked whether the garbage treatment plant is required at Verna, reiterating the CM will take a call on the issue.
On the new high-level Borim bridge, Sequeira said the government is seized with the issue. “There are technical issues involved. If the government was not listening, the government would have gone ahead with the alignment,” he said.
