MARGAO
Are Madgavkars destined to live with the raw sewage spewed on the Margao municipal building pavement day in and out for nearly a month, emitting sewage odour, posing a nuisance and health hazard to the citizens?
Assuming there is a backflow of sewage water from the underground sewage line resulting in the raw sewage coming out of the two sewage chambers, has the Margao Municipal Council (MMC), which has no dearth of technical officials and sanitary inspectors, has run out of ideas in capping the raw sewage discharge?
A couple of sewage chambers on the roads, which had resembled fountains after sewage mixed with rainwater gushed out from the chambers, were capped with concrete, throwing up the question of why a similar sort of measure has not been employed to cap the overflowing sewage chambers?
Questions are also being raised that while the sewerage generated in the MMC building does not enter the underground line because of the backflow, why the civic body has not explored the possibility of shutting the toilets and washrooms and in their place, put to use bio-toilets as a makeshift arrangement.
Well, these and other questions have come to the fore since no solution seemed forthcoming to stop the raw sewage overflowing from the two sewage chambers on the MMC pavement, raising a stink in the entire area.
Hapless cobblers, sitting just a metre away from the overflowing chambers, to eke a living on the MMC building pavement, have been making fervent pleas to all and sundry with the hope that better sense would prevail and the chambers are capped, but in vain.
Visitors to the municipal library have also been complaining of sewage odour emanating around the area, right inside the reading room, but no relief has come from the authorities to date.
A regular reader at the MMC library wondered why the civic body has not found a solution to the problem when it goes about issuing notices to households and establishments to disconnect water and power supply because of overflowing septic tanks.
“Going by the heavy and incessant rains, the state may witness rains for another month. Should we assume that the raw sewage will continue to overflow on the MMC building pavement for the next month,” the reader further wondered.
When The Goan called up Chief Officer Gaurish Shankhwalkar to shed light on the nuisance and health hazard posed by the continuous discharge of raw sewage onto the MMC building pavement, he attributed the problem to the back water flow from the underground sewage line, probably because of rainwater infiltration. He, however, assured to have an interaction with MMC technical officials to find out a temporary solution.
