MARGAO
When a portion of the Sonsodo waste treatment wall collapsed on Saturday, the approach road to the plant was blocked due to the debris and the waste that spilled onto the road.
Garbage-laden trucks could not unload the tonnes of daily wet waste into the plant for two reasons. One, while the debris and waste had blocked access to the plant on one side, access to the plant from the landfill site was ruled out due to the bumpy road.
Municipal garbage drivers now fear the worst with the monsoon fast approaching and the entry and exit road to the Sonsodo waste treatment plant lying in bad and damaged state.
Sadly, the Margao Municipal City Fathers and the officials did not deem fit to get the road repaired and restored when it was decided at the first meeting of the present Council held on July 9 to take up the road repairs by spending a whopping Rs 40 lakh.
Otherwise, consider this. While the MMC had tendered the road work and had even processed the file till the stage of issuing the work order, the file had mysteriously gone missing. The file tracking system had last tracked the file to the chamber of Chief Officer, Agnelo Fernandes. The Chief Officer, however, was on record saying the file was asked by the Municipal Chairperson, Lyndon Pereira, never to return back to his office, a claim rejected by the chairperson.
While the office of the Chief Officer and the Chairperson continued to pass the buck over the missing file, the Sonsodo access road remains unattended till date, posing the risk of danger to the garbage truck drivers.
Incidentally, Margao Municipal Chief Officer had told the Municipal engineers to reconstruct the road file to ensure that the contractor, whose bid had found favour with the Council, is awarded the work. However, sources said the plan did not take off till date.
Council meeting expected to deliberate threadbare on Sonsodo issues today
MARGAO: The much-awaited emergency meeting of the Margao Municipal Council called to take stock of the situation arising out of the collapse of the Sonsodo waste treatment wall last Saturday will be held on Wednesday.
While the City Fathers are expected to deliberate threadbare on the issues plaguing the Sonsodo waste treatment plant and how to go about addressing the burning issue, sources informed the Municipal administration may place before the meeting the proposal seeking approval to spend around Rs 2.70 crore on a contractor to cart out the piled waste inside the plant and remediate the same.
The administration is also expected to place before the meeting another proposal seeking the Council’s nod to spend around Rs 50 lakh on purchase of power transformer and electrical equipment for Sonsodo after the same were gutted in the fire incident.
