The Margao municipal Council is backfilling the area at Sonsodo where sanitary waste was found disposed in an unscientific manner. Pics Santosh Mirajkar.
The Margao Municipal Council may find itself in trouble over the unscientific disposal of diapers and sanitary pads at Sonsodo as an inspection of the Sonsodo site by the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has revealed that mixed waste included sanitary material was found dumped and covered with mud at the site.
Sources informed that GSPCB Chairman Levinson Martins had deputed a team along with an official of the Goa Waste Management Corporation to verify and ascertain reports that the Margao Civic body had buried sanitary waste at Sonsodo instead of sending the waste to the Bio-medical waste treatment plant at Kundaim.
The team found the mixed waste including sanitary waste dumped at the site and covered with mud near the Manovikas school side. The team also came across a JCB working on the site to level the mud.
Margao Municipal officials are believed to have informed the GSPCB tam that the Civic body has dumped around 10 truckloads of waste at the site since the last two days for backfilling the area near the retaining wall adjacent to the Manovikas school.
The bigger question, however, remains unanswered – will the GSPCB pull up the Civic officials involved in the act of disposing of the sanitary waste unscientifically at Sonsodo when such waste sought to have been handed over to the government-appointed agency handling bio-medical waste at Kundaim?
GSPCB officials in the know pointed out that the MMC has no right to dispose of the sanitary waste at Sonsodo in an unscientific manner when the government has appointed an agency to handle such waste. The official further pointed out that the MMC ought to have worked out a mechanism to fund the disposal of sanitary waste if the Civic body has paid lakhs of rupees to the agency till date. “Just because there is an issues of sanitary waste disposal rate, the MMC cannot take decisions to dispose or bury the waste in an unscientific manner when rules mandates dispose of such waste as per laid down guidelines”, the official added.
While the MMC officials have maintained that a small quantity of sanitary waste might have found its way at Sonsodo, social activists have demanded that the GSPCB check the last date when the MMC had handed over the sanitary waste to the Kundaim based agency for treatment. “Checking the last payment made to the Kundaim based agency will reveal when was the last time the MMC had handed over the sanitary waste to the agency”, remarked an activist.
Meanwhile, MMC officials in the know pointed out that the Civic body has taken up backfilling the area at Sonsod near the retaining wall adjacent to Manovikas school in order to lay a concrete road to ensure smooth movement of garbage vehicles during monsoon. The mud dumping at Sonsodo is not in any way done to bury the sanitary waste, but to pave the way for a concrete road near the existing Sonsodo waste management shed”, the MMC official informed.
