MARGAO
For the first time since the SGPDA retail market complex was commissioned over two decades ago, the meat stalls comprising of chicken, mutton and beef stalls have on Friday finally obtained the Consent to Operate in the mega PDA market.
The SGPDA, however, have a task cut out “ to facilitate the connection of the meat stalls in the market complex to the PWD underground sewer line.
The Consent to Operate was issued to the meat stall owners by the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) under Section 25/26 of the Water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 and under Section 21 of the Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. The Consent to Operate issued by the GSPCB assumes significance and comes against the backdrop of the fact that the Pollution Control Board had issued closure notices for the stalls for discharging waste water in the open drains.
The GSPCB has directed the stall owners to ensure that the waste water from the units, arising from the washing activity, is disposed of into the sewer line of the PWD network within one month from the date of issue of the consent. They have been further told that the daily quantity of effluents from the units, both sewage and sullage, should not exceed 0.02 KLD.
While calling for the maintenance of good house-keeping within the unit premises, the GSPCB has told the owners to maintain all pipes, valves and drains in leak-roof condition.
The Consent to Operate orders were handed over to the meat owners at the hands of Environment Minister Aleixo Sequeira in the presence of SGPDA Chairman, MLA Krishna Daji Salkar, PDA Member Secretary Sheikh Ali, GSPCB official Sanjeev Joglekar and others.
After handing over the orders, the Environment Minister sat down with officials of the Sewerage and Infrastructure Development Corporation of Goa Ltd (SIDCGL) how to go about connecting the meat stalls to the PWD line. When a SIDCGL official pointed out that it would not be feasible to discharge the waste water from the meat stalls into the sewage network, GSPCB official Joglekar said testing of the waste water has revealed that the discharge is within the permissible limits.
After Joglekar promised to share the test report, Sequeira told a SIDCGL official to prepare the estimate for the laying of a line from the market to the nearest sewage line point.
The Minister also told the meat stall owners to immediately seek water NOC from the SGPDA, while instructing the PWD, water supply officials to facilitate release of individual connections to the stall owners.
