MARGAO
With monsoons just around two months away, the question doing the rounds is - who will cover the Sonsodo waste dumpyard with tarpaulin this year to prevent leachate from contaminating the water bodies? Goa State Urban Development Agency's (GSUDA) bioremediation and sorting of the existing waste is yet to commence at the site till date, while on the other hand, Margao Municipal Council has also not prepared the estimates for the Sonsodo covering on grounds that GSUDA will take up bioremediation of the site, reports Guilherme Almeida
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GSUDA’s ambitious bioremediation project at Sonsodo, expected to treat the thousands of existing waste at the dumping site, instead of permanently capping the site, is yet to take off till date. Inquiries by The Goan have revealed that the agency has still not opened the bids received from two companies till date. The reason: GSUDA officials have written to the representatives of the two companies seeking further clarification on the technical proposals received by the agency as a matter of abundant caution. In fact, GSUDA officials told The Goan that while the agency has opened the technical bids received from the two parties, opening of the financial bids has been delayed as the parties have been asked to clarify on certain technical aspects of the bids.
While GSUDA officials pointed out that the financial bids will be opened no sooner the parties submit the clarifications on the technical aspects, sources in the know said the tendering process has consumed a lot of time since the bioremediation of the existing dumpyard was proposed last year. “Yes, there’s been some delay in finalising the bidder on account of the nature of the work. We plan to open the financial bids within this week so that the work order is issued to the successful bidder within the month's end,” a GSUDA official told The Goan.
The delay in taking up the bioremediation work at the Sonsodo waste dumping site has raised a question as to who will cover the existing dump yard and bear the cost of the annual exercise in order to check flow of leachate into the storm drains.
Inquiries with Margao Municipality have revealed that the municipal officials have till date not started the exercise of preparing estimates to cap the Sonsodo dump with tarpaulin, hoping that the GSUDA-initiated bioremediation project will commence before the onset of monsoons.
On the other hand, GSUDA officials said that if the agency decides to commence the bioremediation work at Sonsodo before the rains, then the task of covering the dump yard with tarpaulin will rest with the bioremediation contractor. The GSUDA official, however, failed to understand what prevents Margao Municipality from preparing the estimates and covering the site with tarpaulin, given that Sonsodo is still in possession of the civic body.
GSUDA officials in the know pointed out that it will take a minimum 18 months to complete the bioremediation project, estimated to cost around Rs four crore.
“If at all the project is taken up before the onset of monsoons, GSUDA will get the Sonsodo covering done through our contractor. If not, the responsibility of covering the dump yard will lie with Margao Municipality,” the official added.
Meanwhile, GSUDA will hold a power-point presentation next week on the bioremediation project proposed to be taken up at Sonsodo for the benefit of the city fathers and civic officials. The presentation assumes significance since the municipality is also required to play a major role in the execution of the project in terms of identification of sites for dumping of the waste rejects generated during the bioremediation work. The municipality is also required to stop dumping of waste at the Sonsodo site during the execution of the bioremediation project.
