CITIZEN
SABINA DE SOUSA
Siolim
Shopping at the Mapusa market has become an unsettling ordeal, especially for customers frequenting the meat shops. At a time when shops at smaller markets like Margao are being sealed for violating pollution norms, neither the traders nor the authorities here at Mapusa seem to be bothered about sanitation and hygiene at this market. The shops selling meat – both beef and pork – wash their counters and floors, but do not have a proper drainage/sewage system. The bloody wash water, often with bits of meat and bone, is pushed out of the shops onto the pathway, and customers often have to trudge through stagnant puddles of filthy water to reach the shops. The puddles attract swarms of flies and we often see maggots and other vermin in this stagnant wash water.
What makes matters worse is the cross-contamination – fruits, vegetables and even snacks are sold at the same market, not too far away. The flies that sit on the rotting water and then sit on the fruits and ready-to-eat snacks, raising the risk of contamination and infections like salmonella and parasitic infestations. The same flies may also infect the fresh meat at the shops, which also sell mince or kheema, where the meat is ground without washing. Sources reveal that some shops neither have a soak pit, nor a septik tank to absorb the waste.
These conditions are unacceptable in a post-pandemic world, where infections like bird flu, swine flu, Covid and even the latest outbreak of Guillan-Barre Syndrome in Pune are known to cause severe health complications and death.
I urge the Mapusa Municipal Council and the Goa State Pollution Board to look into this pressing sanitation issue and ensure that these traders are now allowed to leave filthy water in front of their shops. The least that can be done is to have basic but proper drains for this waste water, which can be disinfected with bleach or chlorine, if nothing else.