Margao households to now face penalty for not handing over segregated waste

THE GOAN NETWORK | MAY 28, 2022, 11:20 PM IST
Margao households to now face penalty for not handing over segregated waste

MARGAO

Around a decade after the Margao Municipal Council implemented the door-to-door waste collection project, households not handing over segregated waste now run the risk of facing a penalty of Rs 5,000 under the Goa Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Act, 1998.

With the commercial capital playing host to around 65-odd black spots, citizens disposing of their waste at the black spots will also face similar action.

For, the Margao Municipal Council has taken a serious view of the households handing over unsegregated waste to the garbage collectors and had now decided to impose a penalty on individuals who are not segregating their household waste, and also for dumping mixed waste at isolated and unauthorized places.

Newly-appointed Margao Municipal Chief Officer Rohit Kadam has on Saturday issued public notice warning violators and offenders involved in handing over unsegregated waste to the waste collectors and for disposing of waste at the black spots that they would be penalized with a fine up to Rs 5,000 with immediate effect as per the provisions of the Goa Non-Biodegradable Garbage Control Act, 1998.

In the notice, the Chief Officer pointed out that under the provisions of the Municipal Solid Waste (Management & Handling) Rules 2016, it is the prime responsibility of every household to segregate their own waste at source into dry and wet before handing it over to the municipal waste collectors as per the waste collection schedule.

Saying that the Margao Municipal Council has been imparting its services of door-to-door collection of waste in all the 25 municipal wards, the Chief Officer, however, stated that it has been brought to his notice by the waste collection supervisors that some individual houses are reluctant to segregate their household waste into wet and dry as a result of which they hand over mixed waste to the waste collectors.

“In other cases, it has also been brought to my notice that the mixed waste is being dumped/disposed of at isolated and unauthorized places thereby resulting in a black spot”, he said.

The Chief Officer added: “Despite providing services of door-to-door collection of waste and creating awareness, several times amongst the general public and upon repeated instructions regarding waste segregation, it is observed that that the numbers of households are refusing to segregate their waste dry and wet, thereby violating the provisions of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 and also creating a hurdle to the council in further processing of the municipal solid waste”.

The MMC action to crackdown on households is being mooted around a decade after the civic body had kick-started the door-to-door waste collection exercise. To get the cooperation of the households, the civic body had provided thousands of bins funded by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) to cover all the households, including the illegal structures, to ensure that the households sort out the waste right inside their homes before handing over the segregated waste to the garbage collectors.


MMC faces challenge of imposing fines for dumping at black spots

THE GOAN NETWORK

MARGAO

The Margao Municipal Council is indeed facing a challenge of sorts in implementing the penalties on unscrupulous elements disposing of mixed waste at the black spots.

For, if sources are to be believed, mixed waste from the adjoining villages finds its way to the black spots for want of an effective mechanism in place to reign in on the violators.

The majority of the 65-odd black spots in the commercial capital are located on the periphery of the town, indicating that unscrupulous elements from the neighbouring villages dispose of their waste in the city.

Previous attempts to reign in the violators by empowering the citizens to click photos of the violators had come to a cropper. Plans by the Margao Municipality to install Closed Circuit TV surveillance cameras and deploy municipal squads to keep the violators at bay had also failed to kick start for reasons best known to the municipal administrators and the City Fathers.

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