Julio D’Silva
The new government has started ‘rain’-ing in promises of clearing the Sonsoddo mess before the monsoons. The Fatorda MLA and first time minister of TCP Vijai Sardesai, has promised something which has been thus far, impossible — that accumulated waste will be segregated and minimised before the onset of monsoons. He also said that scientific waste treatment methodology will commence from April 1.
The assurances came after his joint inspection of the site along with GSIDC MD Sanjit Rodrigues and members of the Margao Municipal Council. He also urged the MMC to complete the land fill site at the earliest as that was very necessary to complete the works at Sonsoddo. He said measures have to be taken to ensure that all the land available is optimally utilised and suggested having a Saligao-type plant at Margao to alleviate people’s sufferings.
Sanjit Rodrigues while stressing the need to have a survey first to know the volume and density of the waste accumulated, emphasised the need to segregate waste at source, which he said would control leachate flow and also avoid landslides. Incidentally, Sanjit initiated the segregation at source and garbage collection at Panjim years ago when he was the Chief Officer of the Panaji Municipal Council.
Sonsoddo dump site has been a cause of concern for many years now. Vijai and Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco had jointly inspected the site on June 20, 2015 after a NGO had raised up the issue and very shortly thereafter on July 3, 2015 locals from Sonsoddo demanded that the high power committee headed by the Chief Minister of Goa be dissolved.
Incidentally while the High Power Committee on Sonsoddo on May 21, 2015, decided to outsource garbage collection, the municipal council pointed to lack of resource. It has now decided to outsource the garbage collection only because it cannot get the people to segregate the waste at source.
As there was no headway in dealing with the garbage stink bomb that Sonsoddo was turning into, Curtorim MLA, Aleixo Reginald Lourenco again inspected the site on October 4, 2016 to observe that only garbage segregation work was being done there and no work absolutely was done towards treating the collected garbage.
