MARGAO
With the waste management works in limbo at Sonsodo over the government’s delay in according sanctions and approvals for the projects, Goa Forward chief and Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai took on ally-turned-foe Margao MLA Digambar Kamat on Tuesday, questioning why the Congress-turned-BJP MLA cannot get the much-needed sanctions for the Sonsodo garbage projects from his very own Urban Development Minister.
At a time when the Margao Municipal Council controlled by Kamat is under the lens of citizens over Sonsodo and the defunct traffic signals, the Fatorda MLA served a seven-day deadline on the Margao Municipal body to either revive the dead signals by signing an Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC) with the agency failing which he has offered to use his own money in the interest of the citizens and the motorists.
Sardesai reminded the Margao MLA that he had got Waste Management Minister Atanasio Monserrate to Sonsodo last year after the 2022 Assembly polls, wherein it was decided to implement a slew of measures to streamline waste management at Sonsodo. “I am shocked to know that not a single work has been set in motion at Sonsodo. Not even the civil works have started at the site. The Margao MLA has been visiting Sonsodo and returning back after taking photographs,” Sardesai said, while demanding that the Margao MLA should tell the people of Margao and Fatorda what he has done to improve Sonsodo after embracing the ruling BJP nearly five months ago.
He added: “I had got the project to remediate the Sonsodo legacy dump in 2017. While work on clearing the legacy dump is progressing as per the schedule, the wet waste is not being treated at Sonsodo, creating the mess. The Margao MLA should explain why his very own government is not giving the approvals to start the work at Sonsodo, including treatment of the daily fresh waste.”
Making a plea to the Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar to handle the burning issue of garbage and traffic signals without politics, Sardesai said it should not happen that the traffic signals are deliberately not revived by the civic body just because I was instrumental in installing the traffic signals in Fatorda under “We for Fatorda” banner.
“Garbage and traffic signals are everybody’s issues. The traffic signals are not the issue of Vijai Sardesai alone. In fact, the government should have installed and maintained the traffic signals. But, since the government had no plans for the traffic signals, I had got the signals installed on the “We for Fatorda” banner,” he said, demanding to know whether the Margao Municipal had no responsibility to revive the traffic signals.
Saying that the Municipality will be required to spend around Rs 2 lakh annually towards the maintenance of the traffic signals, Sardesai said, “Let the civic body tell the people it is bankrupt and have no money in its coffers and I will spend my own money to revive the signals in the interest of the public.”
