The Margao Municipal Council is literally struggling to keep the door-to-door waste collection from going off track – two months after it was launched with much fanfare on August 1.
While households are slowly and steadily getting accustomed to the collection of waste door-to-door, there are still many households awaiting the promised black and green colour bins. That’s not all. The commercial establishments have so far not been brought under the ambit of the scheme and neither has the civic body fixed fees to be levied on the shops and establishments. Segregation of waste collected by the 170 daily wage workers is still a far cry, a fact that threatens to defeat the very purpose behind launching the ambitious programme. Presently, waste collected by the workers is being dumped in trucks and transported to Sonsodo for disposal.
And, above all, the 170 daily wage workers, pre-dominantly female workers, have not been paid their wages for the month of August for no fault of theirs. The non-payment of wages has cast a shadow of doubt on the continuance of the scheme with the workers threatening to stop work from next month if their dues are not cleared by then. Leave alone the wages, the workers are forced to work without gloves, masks and foot wear till date. Failure to pay the workers their wages has hit their morale rock bottom and has sent wrong signals to the people over the seriousness of the civic in implementing the scheme.
Questions are raised in the corridors of the civic body on the funding of the scheme. While the government has given financial sanction for the project for a period of three months, questions have come to fore how the civic body will manage the funds to pay the monthly wages, pegged at a whopping Rs 16 lakh. Attempts to rope in self-help-groups to manage the scheme have not fructified till date. It is felt that involving SHGs will save the Council’s of the precious funds and also save the Council of many liabilities.
Says MMC Chairperson, Gonzaco Rebello: “We had a joint meeting today wherein the door-to-door scheme was reviewed. It has been decided to arrange the necessary funds and pay wages to the workers”.
