MARGAO
Sunday morning saw MMC Chief Officer Y B Tawde, municipal engineer Surendra Gaonkar, other municipal officials and the contractor’s representative, Ganesh, conduct a survey of the existing Sonsodo dump yard in a bid to identify land to store the plastic and inert rejects. Given the sensitive nature of the issue, TCP Minister Vijai Sardesai also made his appearance at the site at the fag end of the inspection.
After the inspection, municipal engineer Surendra Gaonkar told The Goan that it has been decided to stack the inert and plastic material generated by the bio-remediation exercise at the Sonsodo site itself as a
stop-gap arrangement.
“We have identified 2-3 sites atop the dump near the old shed as possible areas which can be put to use to stack the inert and plastic waste,” Gaonkar said.
He, however, said that the sites identified during Sunday inspection will be of purely temporary nature after levelling of the
waste mound.
After Saturday’s abortive bid to transport the waste from the Sonsodo site to the municipality acquired land falling in Raia village jurisdiction, Margao Municipal Council and the TCP Minister appear to be treading a cautious path, given the sensitive nature of the issue. Raia villagers along with residents of Borda and Gogol had recently foiled attempts made by government surveyor to demarcate the adjoining hillock for the proposed Kabrastan, and sources said that neither the municipality nor the government want another confrontation with the residents on
the garbage issue.
Incidentally, though land admeasuring 30,000 sq mts was acquired by the Margao municipality in the 90’s, Raia villagers have opposed any development on the land for garbage disposal on grounds that since the acquired land is a valley, waste and leachate would flow down into the village, thus contaminating the fields
and groundwater.
