MARGAO
When the Margao Municipal Council first proposed the gasification plant in 2025, the elected body strongly batted for the project, with elected representatives and officials.
Council representatives went around the town, tom-tomming the plant as the long-awaited solution to the mixed waste dumped at the nearly 30 black spots scattered across the commercial capital.
The then ruling council had claimed that it had finally found a permanent solution to the black spots, maintaining that the mixed and unsegregated waste collected from these sites would be directly fed into the gasification plant for treatment.
Whether the Council deliberately indulged in misinformation to win public support for the project, or whether it was itself briefed by senior officials and powers that be to build a narrative in favour of the gasification plant, remains a question.
Barely three months after the plant was commissioned in April, however, reality appears to have set in. It has now become evident that the facility is not designed to process all kinds of mixed and unsegregated waste, contrary to the impression created by the civic body and its officials before the project took off.
In fact, directors of the Pune-based company operating the plant were categorical in stating that if ash generated by the plant contains materials such as glass, metal, earthen pots, thermocol and other inert waste, it indicates that the facility is receiving unsuitable waste. The company has maintained that such materials should not enter the gasification process.
The clarification from the company directors has effectively demolished the claims made by the civic body and its officials that the plant would accept and process all the unsegregated waste dumped at the town's black spots.
