MARGAO: Even as Margao Municipal Council Chief Officer Siddhivinayak Naik said unless the authorities address the issue of commercial establishments taking sewerage connections seriously nothing will help them, Sewerage and Infrastructural Development Corporation of Goa Limited (SIDCGL) disclosed that this problem will be addressed very soon.
General Manager of the Corporation Ganesh Velip pointed out that this matter was discussed quite at length at the recently concluded Assembly session and added that the government is seized of the same and will work out some solution.
The Corporation connects sewage of residential places by charging them Rs 3,000 per flat or Rs 5,000 for a bungalow. However, for commercial establishments that include housing societies or buildings that have many flats the corporation does not do the connection.
Instead, these commercial establishments are given the names of some contractors who do the work and asked to use their services expecting the managements to give the work to the contractor who quotes the lowest amount.
Sources disclosed that the amount quoted by the contractors depends upon the distance to the sewerage connection and also the number of chamber to be connected and works out to around Rs 50,000 and being only Rs 20,000 if it is about 15 mtrs away.
However, Siddhivinayak pointed out that the commercial complexes do not follow up after asking for the quotation and conveniently continue to use their septic tanks without connecting them to the sewerage system.
In fact recently a joint inspection was conducted by representatives of five departments along with MMC and they identified 14 places where sewage was being released directly in the storm water drains.
