29 Nov 2021  |   08:04am IST

The stink comes home: CAC gram sabha members find garbage at panchayat office

Members shocked to be welcomed by the filthy smell of garbage as they reached for their first post COVID gram sabha; Panchayat admits helplessness in finding waste management solutions

Team Herald

CANSAULIM: The Cansaulim-Arossim-Cuelim (CAC) villagers had a filthy start to their village panchayat meeting on Sunday morning. Panchayat members arriving for their first gram sabha in two years experienced an all pervasive filthy odour in the panchayat premises.

To their utter shock they realise that their panchayat office had become a garbage dumping ground.

 “We were exacted because this was the first gram sabha held after two long years of COVID-19 break. We thought we will present our issues, grievances and hardships before the Panchayat body and would adopt all necessary resolutions, but we were left disappointed because they had kept garbage in front of Panchayat entrance to welcome us,” said Jose Fernandes, a gram sabha member from CAC village.

The gram sabha members were shocked to find the garbage dump right at the entrance of Panchayat Office. This issue was also lengthy deliberated during the gram sabha meeting on Sunday.

“Throughout the gram sabha proceedings panchayat body admitted that they were helpless in finding out solutions to garbage menace. Yet they don’t deny any permissions to the proposed mega-projects or hotel projects in the village. They just claimed that higher authorities have been issuing permissions for such projects. Our main worry is that today they (Panchayat) don’t have place for solid waste management, so how they will manage to handle garbage generated from such projects once they become reality,” Malika Fernandes, a CAC Villager questioned

CAC Sarpanch Ferwin Saldanha however justified his action on garbage dumping and said “Yes, it is true that to some extent we are helpless and hence we are keeping garbage in front of panchayat building, but we don’t keep it for long. We are hiring a pickup to transport this village garbage to the site under the Goa waste management authority in Verna. This garbage is kept for the last three days as we are waiting for one pickup load of garbage to accumulate,” Saldanha said

He further added that “The problem is everybody cries but nobody is ready to give solutions for that. We don’t have Comunidade land. Somebody donated us a plot. We did all the formalities but two or three families made noise and stalled the project. Now we have got another plot donated by this same person and all formalities are going on to use this place as a Material recovery facility,” Saldanha added