MARGAO
With Sonsodo coming under the High Court lens and the court setting timelines for the completion of various works, officials of the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) and the Margao Municipal Council along with MLAs Digambar Kamat and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco descended at the waste dumping site to take stock of the situation and clear decks for the commencement of works as per the timeline.
Another high-level meeting of officials of the Director of Municipal Administration and the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) has been convened in Panaji on Monday given that many of the works proposed at Sonsodo require a prior nod of the government.
Margao MLA Digambar Kamat with GWMC Managing Director Levinson Martins, MMC Chairperson Damu Shirodkar, Chief Officer Manuel Barretto, municipal engineers and councillors in tow descended at Sonsodo on Friday morning, the first visit post-High Court directions on the waste management site.
The MLA took a round of the site discussing with the officials how to go about addressing the issue of daily treatment of wet waste, baling of dry waste, putting the power infrastructure in place, and fire fighting arrangements et al which have all come under the High Court scanner.
They also reviewed the ongoing works on the construction of leachate tanks, the approach road to the plant, the remediation of the legacy dump and the transportation of the RDF to the cement factories.
“We have all come to inspect and see how best to implement the timeline set up by the High Court on Sonsodo. We have taken a review of the Action Plan submitted by the Margao Municipal Council to the High Court and to get some of the works completed before the onset of monsoons,” Kamat informed.
He added: “The road work is almost completed and a hot mix carpet will be laid on the road so that there is no problem for the next five years. Out of the five leachate tanks proposed, work on three tanks is completed. This should address the flow of leachate from Sonsodo.”
Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco who later joined the inspection said he had been raising the Sonsodo issue in the Assembly since the time he was first elected in 2007.
"I have been asking the MMC their plan of action and today they have explained to me how they intend to address the problem. I know it takes time to implement the work,” he said while expressing his happiness the High Court is monitoring the progress of works.
The Curtorim MLA said the MMC should unveil the plan for how it will go about treating the wet waste, saying a solution needs to be found for the waste dumping on the Margao-Curtorim road at Sonsodo.
