MARGAO
When a portion of the wall collapsed on Saturday morning, the Margao Municipal Council by its own admission said around 15,000 tonnes of waste has piled up inside the Sonsodo waste treatment plant.
Take note, the shed and the plant was primarily meant to treat the daily wet waste generated in the commercial capital, and not to stack the waste inside the imposing shed admeasuring around 5,000 square metres. In fact, blame it on sheer negligence or lethargy, while the Goa Waste Management Corporation has been busy with the remediation of the legacy dump outside, a mound of wet waste has been taking shape inside the plant over the last two years.
Reason: Despite tall promises made by the Margao Municipal City Fathers and the Municipal babus, no waste was being treated inside the plant since mid-2020 and neither was any piled up waste carted out of the plant for remediation.
Thanks to the Goa Waste Management Corporation’s initiative in 2020, during Covid-19 pandemic first lockdown, tonnes of accumulated waste from the waste treatment plant was carted out and remediated at a whopping cost of Rs 84 lakh, to create space inside the shed to facilitate the Margao Municipal Council to start scientific treatment of the daily waste.
Sadly, the Margao Municipal babus dragged their feet on the GWMC’s suggestion to float an Expression of Interest (EOI) to rope in a contractor to run the waste treatment plant for a year on temporary basis till the civic body goes about a permanent solution to the waste treatment plant imbroglio.
To assist the civic body in overcoming the teething problems during the period before the private contractor takes over the operations, GWMC Managing Director Levinson Martins drafted a Corporation engineer at Sonsodo to help and guide the civic workers how to go about the waste treatment with the traditional windrow method.
GWMC’s suggestion to appoint a private contractor to handle the day-to-day waste went abegging with the Municipal babus on the plea that the new elected Council will take the call on the matter. Sources informed the waste treatment plant, which was rid of the accumulated waste around mid-2020 by the GWMC during the Covid lockdown period, again played host to tonnes of waste dumped inside sans treatment.
The return of the Congress-Goa Forward alliance to rule the civic body for another term did not help resolve the matter. In fact, while the new Council headed by Chairperson Lyndon Pereira assumed office on May 27, 2021, the first meeting of the newly-elected Council took place on July 9, wherein it was resolved to address the Sonsodo imbroglio head on, but in vain.
The proposal to float an Expression of Interest (EOI) to appoint a contractor to handle the plant for a year was given the thumbs-up by the City Fathers on July 9 meeting, after the proposal was mooted by Goa State Pollution Control Board.
Sadly, no contractor was ever engaged to treat the daily waste, as a result of which the daily waste took the shape of a mountain inside the shed over the months, so much so methane gas generated inside the shed gave rise to fires and smoke, leaving the plant saturated with waste packed to the brim, before the portion of the wall collapsed on Saturday morning.
