the goan I network
MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council might have not stopped sending SOS to the government from time to time to bail out the civic body on the Sonsodo imbroglio from the collapse of the waste treatment and disposal mechanism.
Sadly, the civic body has been found wanting in capping the minor fires and smoke, emanating from the waste dumping site, in recent days and months, posing a health hazard to residents staying in the immediate neighbourhood, besides the children studying in the adjoining school.
Ever since the legacy dump was engulfed by a major fire on May 25 last, which was later brought under control after five-days of fire-fighting operation, minor fires and smoke emanating from Sonsodo has literally been the order of the day.
The subsequent fire around November underneath the high-tension power line has only made matters worse for the beleaguered residents, as there’s been no stop to the smoke billowing from the dump yard since then.
Incidentally, the Margao Municipal Council has been a silent spectator to the minor fires and smoke emanating from the site, around the area underneath the HT line, as if they have no role to play in capping the poisonous smoke. If sources are to be believed, the Margao fire brigade is called at the Sosnodo site only if the fire threatens to spread to the dump.
In fact, when health-conscious citizens had approached the MMC time and again, civic officials have attributed the smoke to the methane gas underneath the dump. Sadly, the MMC officials, which has approached the government with a plea to bail out the municipality to put systems in place after Fomento’s exit, has not formulated any plan of action either to contain the minor fires or cap the smoke.
An activist pointed out that it is unbecoming of a civic body to ignore the minor fires and smoke billowing from the garbage dump yard, knowing well that the smoke is hazardous to health and safety of the citizens. “Just imagine a situation when smoke billows out of the dump day in and out and the local civic body has no system in place to cap it. The High Court had intervened at Sonsodo after the local citizens under the banner of Citizens for Sonsodo had knocked the doors of the judiciary after the civic body was found wanting in managing the Sonsodo dump”, an activist remarked, while demanding to know whether citizens should approach the High Court time and again to force the civic body fulfill its obligations.
