the goan I network
PANAJI
The Bombay High Court at Goa has sought the response of the Margao Municipal Council, Fomento Green, Goa Waste Management Corporation and others on a public interest litigation by the Goa Foundation on the removal of the Sonsodo municipal waste dump.
The Goa Foundation, which attempted to manage the Sonsodo waste plant between 2004 and 2006 and later for a brief period after another management company quit, alleged in its petition that despite the Pollution Control Board’s directions, the MMC was still continuing to accept unsegregated waste at the existing dump.
The petition seeks permanent removal of the Sonsodo garbage waste dump which poses a grave threat to the health and the environment of citizens in the vicinity of the site as a result of mismanagement. The petition seeks directions from the court to the Goa State Pollution Control Board to calculate the costs of pollution from the dump site (including the fire in May-June 2019) under the polluter pays principle and levy such charges against the MMC and its individual officers.
Further, the Goa Foundation has sought that as interim relief the MMC be restrained from dumping any further unsegregated or segregated waste at the site.
It has also prayed for denying any new licence for construction within its jurisdiction till the removal of the dump and also seek a plan, with bar chart, for complete evacuation of the dump prior to the 2020 monsoon.
