MARGAO
There’s no let-up in waste from the outskirts of Margao finding its way into the commercial capital.
In fact, black spots on the periphery of the city have become the favourite waste dumping by unscrupulous contractors and individuals, collecting waste from the neighbouring villages and disposing of the waste in the city.
This became evident when a campaign initiated by the Margao Municipality under the leadership of Municipal Engineer Deepak Desai has intercepted a number of miscreants and caught them red-handed while dumping waste at the black spots.
In fact, around 34 persons were caught red-handed by the specially constituted night cell comprising of the engineers, sanitary inspector Sanjay Sanguelkar, supervisors and other staff. While the special drive has made the civic body richer by around Rs 50,000, the exercise has only brought to the fore the contentious issue of waste from the adjoining villages finding its way into the commercial capital.
The miscreants were caught red-handed at the Comba ring road, near the sewerage treatment plant at Sirvodem, near ESI hospital, Calconda, besides N D Nayak garage at Fatorda and Durga petrol pump, Fatorda.
Incidentally, a ride down the Comba ring road on Sunday evening revealed that miscreants had dumped a couple of plastic bags containing waste, indicating that despite the drive conducted by the municipal officials, it had no deterrence on the ground.
Municipal engineer Deepak Desai informed the civic body was forced to conduct the late night drive to intercept waste since the waste dumped at the black spots has only increased in recent items. “The drive was aimed at creating an awareness as well as a deterrence to the unscrupulous elements that they will have to pay dearly in the event they continue to dump waste at the black spots,” he said.
Questions, however, are being raised in the corridors of the civic body and outside for how long will the Municipal team maintain the night vigil given that waste collection beyond the Municipal jurisdiction is yet to fall in place and unscrupulous garbage contractors dumping waste in the city.
The Margao Municipal Council annually spends a whopping over Rs 6 crore towards the door-to-door waste collection in the commercial capital, throwing up a contentious question as to how the waste finds its way at the black spots when the civic body has outsourced the work of collecting door-to-door waste to the contractors.
