MARGAO: The capping of Sonsodo will burden Madgavkars yet again for no fault of theirs as the Margao Municipal Council is bracing up to float a tender estimated to cost close to Rs 12 lakh to carry out the annual ritual of covering the waste dumping site to prevent leachate from flowing into the water bodies.
That the civic body is gearing up to cover the waste dump again for the eight year in succession indicates that successive governments as well as the council have failed to rid the eyesore staring at the city for over six decades now.
With the approval for the Black Hole technology by the state agencies not forthcoming till date, Chief Officer Johnson Fernnades has accorded his nod to the estimates prepared by the MMC engineers to float a tender for covering of the dump yard at a cost of Rs 11.98 lakh. “The tender will be floated within the next couple of days as the work of covering the Sonsodo dump yard with tarpaulin is required to be completed within a time frame and well before the onset of the monsoon season,” Johnson told The Goan.
This is perhaps the eight year in succession that the Sonsodo waste mound will be covered with tarpaulin as per the High Court order. And, in the bargain, MMC itself is believed to have spent over rupees half a crore, and not to mention the money spent by Fomento Green for two years when the dump yard was in its possession at the time of setting up of the garbage treatment plant.
While the estimates prepared by the MMC technical section has pegged the cost to a whopping Rs 11.98 lakh, the actual cost for executing the work would finally depend on the bid received by prospective parties.
Sources in the know said a section in the Margao municipality is of the firm opinion that the annual ritual of covering the Sonsodo dump yard does not lead the civic body anywhere, terming the exercise as a futile and a wasteful expenditure for the reason that the tarpaulin does not protect the site from the rains and neither prevents leachate from flowing into the storm water nullahs resulting in the contamination of the ground water. “We have often come across the dump yard exposed to rains and heavy downpour despite being covered with tarpaulin. It is also an open fact that the leachate continues to flow from the mound into the adjoining storm water nullah despite covering of the site with tarpaulin,” the sources said.
