MARGAO
A first glance at the Colva creek, located at the entrance of the world-famous Colva beach appeared clean, free from plastic and dry waste, besides garbage.
It’s not clear whether the creek has been cleaned up ahead of the beach volleyball lined up at the iconic beach or whether the water body is spruced up as part of routine maintenance contract.
The water flowing in the creek into the sea, however, raised many an eyebrow amongst onlookers crossing the creek to make it to the beach. Brown colour water appeared flowing through the channel, particularly at the point where the creek waters join the sea water on the beach.
A STP plant has been installed at the creek to treat the sewage and effluent discharge by the commercial establishments into the water body, but the fact that the discharged water was brownish in colour indeed threw up a host of questions.
Unsuspecting children, mostly domestic visitors were seen playing at the place where the creek water mixed with the sea. Visitors were also seen wading through ankle deep water to make it to the other side of the beach, without realising that the water they were crossing may be mixed with effluents or waste.
For, the tourist village has still no proper sewage discharge mechanism to treat the sewage generated by the scores of hotels, restaurants and business establishments, besides housing societies.
A public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by the Colva Civic and Consumer Forum through its secretary Judith Almeida over a decade ago had brought to the fore the issue of sewage finding its way into the creek, before the water finds its way into the Arabian sea.
Sadly, a decade has passed since the burning issue had come under the scanner of the High Court, but a foolproof mechanism to treat the sewage generated in the tourist village is still not in place. Thanks to the High Court monitoring, the government had set in motion the process to set up a sewage treatment plant at Colva in the year 2017. Sadly, the plant is still waiting commissioning till date.
