While 30-odd tonnes of wet waste from Margao was being transported to the Cacora waste treatment plant over the last few months for want of a garbage treatment facility at Sonsodo, around 15 tonnes of dry waste now also finds its way to Cacora from the city for the last few days.

The reason cited behind the transportation of dry waste to Sonsodo is that the baling process has hit a block as the MMC has run out of stock of the baling strips to bale the dry waste.

Take note, the MMC has been spending a whopping Rs 15 lakh every month on the transportation of wet waste to the Cacora plant. With the baling process at Sonsodo stuck due to red tape, the civic body will have to foot the bill of the diesel for its fleet of vehicles transporting the dry waste from Sonsodo to the Cacora plant.

Inquiries revealed that municipality trucks make around four trips transporting the dry waste from Sonsodo to Cacora every day. Officials in private said the civic body will have to bear the additional expenditure for transporting the dry waste from Margao to Cacora till the bailing process resumes at Sonsodo.

An MMC official pointed out that the baling of dry waste will resume at Sosnodo only after the civic body makes available the strips used to bale the dry waste. “We only hope that better sense will prevail and the officials and powers that be clear the proposal for purchase of baling strips,” the official said. 

As stocks ran out, council sat on proposals for over a month

Hazard a guess as to why the Margao Municipal Council is not treating the 15 tonnes of dry waste generated in the commercial capital at the Sonsodo garbage management site.

The reason is simple. No baling of dry waste has taken place at the Sonsodo waste dumping site in the last few days as the municipality has not made available baling strips to bale the dry waste.

Resultantly, tonnes of dry waste collected from the commercial capital has been dumped at the Sonsodo waste management site for want of baling in the absence of the strips.

Further inquiries by The Goan revealed that MMC’s agreement with a private contractor for the supply of baling strips had expired over a month ago. To tide over the situation, concerned officials of the MMC technical section had mooted as many as three proposals to the higher-ups. In fact, the technical section had prepared three different proposals, two tenders and a quotation inviting bidders to supply the baling sticks.

“The first proposal was to float a tender worth Rs 15 lakh to purchase the baling sticks to take care of the baling work for the next 7-8 months. The second proposal was a tender worth Rs five lakh and the third one was to buy the sticks via quotations,” sources said.

Officials of the technical section say the proposal had been mooted around a month ago during the tenure of outgoing Chief Officer Gaurish Sankhwalkar. Why the proposal was not implemented is a million-dollar question doing the rounds in the corridors of the civic body.