MARGAO
April 4, 2009. The Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) had cracked a whip by directing agencies such as the Margao Municipal Council and the health department to plug the indiscriminate discharge of untreated sewage into the picturesque Salpem lake in adjoining Navelim village.
Then MMC Chairperson Savio Coutinho along with officials had inspected the Salpem lake to address the issue. In the notice, the GSPCB mentioned the names of some residential complexes, which were asked to immediately stop the discharge of untreated sewage.
April 6, 2022. Exactly 13 years later, officials of the GSPCB, Margao municipality and the health department descended on the Salpem lake to ascertain the extent of sewage discharge, only throwing up questions on Margao’s underground sewerage project which has been dragging on for years with no solution in sight. Rampant sewage into the stormwater drains and in the river Sal continues unabated.
That all isn’t well has become evident when Margao Municipal Council cracked a whip against 65 establishments, both commercial and residential, for discharging waste and sewage water in the stormwater nullahs, as per High Court directions following a petition filed by a Navelim villager Antonio Alvares.
Inspection has further revealed that some of the complexes named by the GSPCB in 2009 were still not connected to the STP for no fault of theirs. They have been waiting since 2019 for the PWD to cut the road and lay the line and connect their complexes to the line.
While these complexes will now soon be connected to the underground line, the ground reality has thrown up a question for debate “ whether the issues raised over a decade ago still remain unresolved and whether the commercial establishments and residential complexes are still not connected to the STPs when the underground line is laid in the Margao area?
Interestingly, a senior official of the Sewerage & Infrastructure Development Corporation of Goa informed that barring minor stretches, the sewerage network is in place in the Margao area of the commercial capital.
“We had some minor issues to be addressed at Colmorod, besides one or two at Aquem, atop Monte Hill and minor stretches that remain connected to the underground line. But more than 90 per cent of Margao has an underground sewerage network,” the official asserted.
This has only raised a serious question whether the business establishments and residential houses conveniently discharge their sewage waste into the stormwater nullas when the network is in place with no mechanism in force to get these premises connected to the same.
Margao Municipal Council’s show-cause notices indicate that most of the establishments are located in areas where the underground network is already in place, but their sewage water finds its way into the nullahs.
Says a Sewerage Corporation official: “We have no mechanism in place to get the establishments and residential societies to connect their premises to the sewerage network. Hence, we now bank on the GSPCB and the MMC to crack a whip against the establishments at the time of renewal of licenses and consent to operate by ensuring the premises are connected to the underground network”.
The official added: “If these measures do not bear fruit, the Corporation and the PWD will move the government once the city is fully connected to the underground network to make sewage connections compulsory in the city.”
Hopes hinge on commissioning of north main line, but no word on it
MARGAO: Can the Sewerage and Infrastructure Development Corporation get its contractors complete work on the North Main line passing through Fatorda and stop the discharge of sewage water into the drains
and stormwater nallahs in the ensuing monsoon?
While officials of the Sewerage Corporation had last month raised hopes that the North Main line, which is being replaced, will be partly commissioned by May end, no news has come in from the officials to date.
An official told The Goan that the work on the North Main line from the Colva circle to the STP is almost complete. However, work on the stretch between the Presentation convent school junction and the Old market circle is still not complete. An official said the work is presently underway.
Sources said unless and until the main line is commissioned, there’s no way the sewage waters from Fatorda area can be channelized into the underground line, connected to the Sewage Treatment plant at Sirvodem. “There’s already a sewerage network in place in Fatorda. The issue of sewage discharge will be resolved once the North Main trunk line is commissioned,” the official added.
