MAPUSA: The Mapusa Youth along with few NGOs have raised strong concern over the pollution of the Mapusa Tar River, which is used for immersion of Ganesh idols during the festive season. Huge amount of garbage, waste, sewage and plastic is dumped into this river on a daily basis but the concerned authorities seem to turn a blind eye to the same.
A group of concerned locals have demanded that the municipality should take some initiative and clean the river, which is littered with all types of waste. The gathering demanded action against those commercial and residential complexes discharging their sewage into the river.
The Mapusa Youth have decided to submit a memorandum to the Health Department as the matter is serious and can cause health hazard.
The leader of the group Mapusa Youth, Gauresh Keni along with other members pointed out the spot where a lot of garbage had accumulated in the river and it was emitting a foul smell. The river water has turned black due to the lechate flow and sewage water flowing from Khorlim to Gandhi Chowk and from the Mapusa market as well.
“This issue is non-political and needs urgent attention. We request the municipality and the Health Department to initiate action against those complexes releasing their sewage into the river through the nullahs. We demand that the release of sewage water into this water body be stopped immediately,” demanded Keni.
The North Goa District Congress president Vijay Bhike said that Mapusa is a historic city.
“The whole country is talking about Swachh Bharat but today we cannot say that we live in a Swachh Bharat with such pollution. The tax payers’ money has gone down the drain. This kind of an environmental damage poses a health hazard. It is high time some solution is found to this problem,” said Bhike.
Member of Goencho Avaaz, Ravi Harmalkar said that it is high time the authorities should wake up including the residents of Mapusa. “We need to find a solution to this river pollution. We do not want Mapusa to be another Mumbai,” he said.
Two months ago, there was a controversy over the dredging works undertaken in this river by the Water Resources Department (WRD) wherein a mud road was constructed in the river to transport silt by the trucks. This had further damaged the mangrove fringed channel and the work was finally stayed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT).
