Yearly capping to cross half-a-crore rupee mark
the goan I network
MARGAO
Don’t be surprised that in the bargain the civic body’s total spending on the annual temporary covering of the site ahead of the monsoon will cross the half a crore mark this year.
For nearly half a decade now, the Margao Municipal Council has been annually spending tax payers’ money on the dumpyard just to cover the site to prevent leachate from flowing down the site.
And no one in the Municipality has an answer to the oft-repeated question as to how many years will it take for the civic body to dispose of tons of existing waste lying at Sonsodo and how much more tax payers’ money will the municipality end up spending on covering the waste site before the monsoon.
Inquiries by The Goan has revealed that the municipality has received a single bid this year amounting to Rs 13.98 lakh to cover the dumpyard with tarpaulin. Municipal engineer Surendra Gaonkar informed that the civic body has invited the single bidder for negotiations in a bid to reduce the amount as per the laid down rules. What’s interesting to note is that the Margao civic body had spent around Rs 12 lakh to cover the Sonsodo site with tarpaulin last year and officials in the know do not rule out the possibility of spending much more than last year on the exercise
this time.
The municipality had been covering the Sonsodo site ever since the High Court had issued directions to cover the yard with tarpaulin so that leachate do not flow from the site and contaminate the adjoining water bodies and underground water.
Incidentally, the MMC could not arrive at a firm decision on how to go about in dealing with the existing site “ whether to cap it off or segregate the waste use the biomining method.
While the civic body and the High Powered Coordination Committee headed by the Chief Minister had scrapped the capping proposal, inquiries by The Goan have further revealed that Goa State Urban Development Agency’s project of segregating the waste has not made much headway so far.
While GSUDA has opened the bid, the work order has not been issued on grounds that the agency would like to negotiate with the bidder on reducing the amount. Though GSUDA says that the agency will move the government for expenditure sanction after negotiations with the company, officials are keeping their fingers crossed over the execution of the project given the roadblocks faced by the agency at the site.
