MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council talks big on its grandiose plans to handle the daily waste via the bio-methanation plants with investment running into crores of rupees.
Municipal officials, however, seemed to have either run out of ideas how to handle and dispose of the tree waste, including leaves or has given their consent to the workers to set afire to such waste for want of any facility to dispose of tree waste.
Successive Chief Officers have failed to reign in the workers involved in setting fire to the dry waste, comprising of leaves and paper around the city. If one often comes across fire billowing from the Margao Municipal garden, right under the nose of the Chief Officer and the Administrator, the situation is not anything better across the city.
The situation has thrown up questions whether municipal officials have sensitized the ground workers on the NGT ban on waste burning and how the practice can put the lives of the citizens to great risk.
“The workers need to be sensitized by the officials regularly. The responsibility lies on the officials to hold the sensitization program from time to time to ensure that the workers stopped burning the waste,” remarked a civic official.
Another question that has come to the fore on waste burning is whether the civic body has the wherewithal to handle tree waste, including leaves.
When The Goan called up Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) Managing Director Levinson Martins to shed light on waste burning in the commercial capital, he said the practice of waste burning stands banned and is a violation of the set rules in force.
