PANAJI
After battling for nearly five-long years to remediate and clear the legacy dumps, five more dumps, with over 83,857 cubic meters (m3) of waste, are created at various locations, especially at the already remediated sites, by the local bodies. The waste dumps cover approximately 48,878 sq meters of area of the four municipalities and one panchayat.
“In recent years new waste dumps have been created at various locations by the urban local bodies and panchayat either at their existing waste management plants or near the existing remediation sites or within their jurisdiction limits. The local bodies have accepted the creation of a new fresh waste dump due to various reasons,” Managing Director of Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) Levinson Martins said.
The Assagao waste dump site was reclaimed by clearing the waste through remediation process way back in May 2022. But now the area adjacent to it, is a hotspot for fresh dumps with a total 31,017.33 m3 of waste being piled up in the last one year.
The Headland Sada Waste Dump, once considered as the legacy waste dump site with over 96,000 cubic metric tons of waste, has once again been converted into a dumping ground for garbage. Almost 23,321.87 m3 of fresh waste has been dumped there since June 2020, when the site was cleared off from the legacy waste. The remediation work of the legacy waste was completed and reclaimed land was even handed over to the Mormugao Municipal council.
Around 15,037.69 m3 of garbage dump was surveyed within the premises of Waste management plant of Taleigao which remained unattended over the years due the local panchayat’s failure to inform the authorities.
A dump site, with total 13,581.53 m3 of waste, has been created outside the compounded periphery of Solid Waste Management Plant at Curchorem-Cacora. The remediation work of Curchorem-Cacora waste dump was completed in May 2019 and an integrated Solid Waste Management Plant was set up on the existing reclaimed land.
In Pernem, where the remediation of the old waste dump was completed in December 2022, the municipality is involved in dumping fresh waste at the reclaimed land. A 899.04 m3of waste dump is created at the site.
Martins said that the Corporation will soon issue fresh tender to undertake the remediation of these dumps.
Since 2019, the Corporation has remediated around 4.52 lakh m3 of legacy dump waste out of a total 4.69 lakh m3 from 11 identified locations. Total three agencies were involved in the remediation process.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was recently on record to state that the government spends Rs 500 crore every year just to tackle legacy waste.
