MARGAO
The Margao Municipal Council was exposed hollow on the waste management front on Thursday as waste generated in the commercial capital awaited disposal throughout the day as trucks laden with garbage could not unload the waste at the Sonsodo waste management shed for want of space.
Since the trucks were all filled with waste for the second day today, garbage bins, either full to the brim or overflowing, dotted the commercial capital at several spots on Thursday morning with garbage vehicles not reporting on the ground for waste collection.
Fortunately, by evening garbage laden trucks started unloading the waste inside the shed after the JCB started the job of pushing back the piled up waste in the shed after 2 pm.
Earlier, trucks laden with waste were spotted outside the Sonsodo waste management shed since the Municipal authorities could not pave the way for the vehicles to enter and unload the garbage.
By noon, acting Margao Municipal Chairperson Deepali Sawal along with Sanitary inspector Viraj Arabekar and other officials descended at Sonsodo to take stock of the situation. The acting Chairperson and the officials saw for themselves how municipal garbage trucks lay stranded outside the treatment plant for want of space to unload waste inside the shed.
The present situation has been attributed to the delay by the Margao Municipality to deploy JCB machine inside the shed to push back the piled up waste. Sources pointed out that the contractor was not willing to deploy the JCB for want of payments by the civic body.
It was only after the acting MMC Chairperson inspected the site on Thursday that the MMC decided to provide fuel to the contractor to run the JCB at the garbage shed. Sources told The Goan that the MMC decided to provide fuel to the JCB contractor around noon, hoping that the machine will push back the piled up waste and pave the way for resumption of waste unloading inside the plant.
Margao Municipal Assistant engineer, Vishant Naik, who was monitoring the situation, said the garbage laden trucks started unloading the waste inside the shed in the evening after the JCB started the job after 2 pm. “All the garbage laden trucks, which were stranded outside the shed for the last two days, have all unloaded the waste into the plant on Thursday evening. The trucks have fanned out to various spots in the city later in the evening to collect the piled up waste inside the garbage bins,” Vishant said.
Another senior official, however, informed that it will take a day or two for the situation to return to normal given that the trucks will have to make extra trips to clear the garbage from the bins.
Sanitary inspector Viraj Arabekar said the garbage trucks have started unloading the waste inside the plant on Thursday evening. “Things should hopefully return to normal in a day or two. Since the garbage vehicles have fanned out to the city to collect garbage, we expect the piled up garbage to be cleared by Friday evening,” he added.
The garbage crisis also brought to the fore the MMC’s inept handling of the situation and the delay by the civic body to make timely payments to the JCB contractors.
