MARGAO
A day after the demo, the garbage suction machine has come under the scanner of Margao Municipal Council officials and citizens alike.
Even as MLAs Digambar Kamat and Vijai Sardesai along with MMC Chairperson Lyndon Pereira seem to have batted for the garbage suction machines, one each for Margao and Fatorda, questions are being raised whether these machines are required for the city when the civic body has almost finalized the door-to-door waste collection contractors at a whopping cost of Rs five crore.
Take note, while the two MLAs and the MMC Chairperson feel these suction machines can be deployed to handle dark spots, the door-to-door waste collection tender documents clearly show that the work of clearing the dark spots in the city forms part and parcel of the contract of the door-to-door waste collection contractors.
Even officials in private demanded to know whether the civic body would go in for a reduction in the cost of the door-to-door waste collection in the event the MMC opts for the garbage suction machines, which is expected to cost the civic body a whopping Rs 70 lakh, inclusive of GST.
In fact, a glance at the scope of the door-to-door waste collection project reveals that the contract mandates the contractor and his workers to collect the waste from the markets as well as from the dark spots in a segregated manner, and load the solid waste in a segregated form into municipal vehicles before transporting the same to the Sonsodo plant.
Against this backdrop, officials in private wondered whether the garbage suction machines will be of any help to the city when the door-to-door waste collection contract mandates the garbage collection contractor and his workers to segregate the garbage at the dark spots and load the same into the municipal vehicles.
That’s not all. Officials in private contended that the garbage segregation facility has no inbuilt mechanism for waste segregation. “Either municipal workers or the workers of the door-to-door waste collector will have to segregate the waste at the dark spots to facilitate the suction machine to lift the segregated waste or the machine sucks the mixed waste and transports the same to the Sonsodo”, the official added.
Even assuming the MMC bulldozes its way and goes for the two garbage suction machines, questions are being raised in the corridors of the civic body if the municipality will revise the agreement for the door-to-door waste collection.
When MMC Chairperson Lyndon Pereira was asked to shed light on the garbage suction machines, he said no decision has been taken by the civic body. “It was just a demo held by the company. Nothing has been decided whether to go for the machines or not”, Pereira added.
