the goan I network
MARGAO
Left with hardly a few options and apparently running out of time, the Margao Municipal Council is in the process of engaging the staff and technicians of Fomento to run the show at the waste treatment plant.
With the High Powered Coordination Committee (HPCC) headed by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant giving the nod to the civic body to hand over the 1000-tonne waste lying inside the treatment facility, the MMC is also considering seeking consent from the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) to remediate the waste stored inside the plant.
MMC Chief Officer Ajit Panchwadkar, who was holed up in Panaji in connection with a High Court matter and other meetings, has issued clear instructions to the civic staff concerned to take up the work of making space inside the waste treatment plant by carting out the existing waste estimated to be around 1000 tonnes.
As far as engaging Fomento’s manpower is concerned, the civic body is open in taking the employees on contract at least for a couple of months initially, before the municipality ropes in a contractor to man the waste treatment facility.
At the HPCC meeting held last week, the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) had offered to prepare an Expression of Interest (EoI) for the Margao Municipal Council to engage a contractor to run the existing waste treatment facility at Sonsodo.
The HPCC had also told the MMC to coordinate with the contractor engaged by the GWMC to remediate the Sonsodo legacy dump before handing over the waste lying inside the plant upon payment of the rates charged by the contractor.
Sources in the civic body informed that the process of carting away of the 1000 tonnes waste lying inside the waste treatment plant at Sonsodo will commence no sooner the consent comes from the GSPCB for the remediation of the waste.
It is not out of place to mention here that the MMC has been barred by the High Court from open dumping of waste at Sonsodo following a petition filed by the Citizens for Sonsodo, a local-NGO that had moved the court praying for the remediation of the Sonsodo legacy dump.
