the goan I network
MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council on Saturday literally struggled with the task of segregating waste at source across the city, including the black spots, a day after it was barred from open dumping of waste at Sonsodo.
The civic body, however, has chalked out a slew of measures, including night lifting of hotel waste from Monday, engaging additional labourers from next week, night patrolling to intercept waste coming into the city from the villages et al.
Civic officials were instructed to identify the households handing over mixed waste and issue fines mooted under the Solid Waste Management Rules.
Hit by manpower constraints, day one saw civic officials trying to put a system in place to get tonnes of waste dumped at the 70-odd black spots and the city markets segregated at source.
While municipal labourers were deployed at certain spots to segregate the waste, similar action was missing at other places, especially at the PDA markets, where the waste piled up for want of removal on Saturday.
Officials, however, exuded confidence of evolving a mechanism by Monday after the civic body ropes in additional manpower for waste segregation, more so at the black spots.
While the municipality lifted the mixed waste from the black spots and dumped it on the existing Sonsodo site all this time, workers were deployed at the black spots for waste segregation, with strict instructions that only the segregated wet waste will go to the Sonsodo plant for treatment and the plastic dry waste for baling.
That the civic body showed a sense of urgency in the matter after the High Court barred it from open waste dumping a day ago was evident by the fact that most of the senior civic officials headed by the CO all descended on the municipal garage at the Old Market to work out and put an action plan in place to meet the challenge.
After the meeting, wherein instructions were issued to the drivers, supervisors and workers, the CO said the meeting was called to fine-tune the system which was already in place.
He said the municipality will start night lifting of hotel waste from Monday to stop these from landing on the roadsides and the black spots. “Night lifting of garbage should help reduce the problem of waste segregation. Since all the hotels and food kiosks contribute to the economy, we will reach out to all in the night to collect their waste,” he added.
To a question, the Chief Officer exuded confidence that the plan to segregate the waste at the black spots itself will pay dividends in the coming days. “While the municipality sends segregated waste from the households to the Sonsodo plant, black spots were a problem. We will put in additional workers to segregate the waste at the spots,” he added.
The CO said that workers have been told to initiate night patrolling with police personnel in tow on the city borders as deterrence and stop the outside waste from finding its way into the city
“We have tried to put a system in place on day one. With fine-tuning of the system, we are confident of overcoming the problem in the coming days,” he said.
In tune with the HC order, Naik said the civic body has withdrawn the machinery from the existing dump yard, adding that the dump will be completely cordoned off in the coming days.
