While these issues are with the government and local bodies, there are others that are the responsibility of the people and can be tackled by the citizens.
The large number of violations of the Goa Garbage Control Act in just the taluka of Salcete is indicative of a much larger menace across the State. While the statistics show 1805 bookings in Salcete police stations in six months, the number works out to an average of 10 violations a day, which is a large figure for just one taluka. As per the police, there has been an increase in such cases this year, yet in comparison to the previous years, the data is not very alarming as the trend has remained more or less constant. In the year 2020, the same taluka had 3556 such cases booked while in the previous year it had been 3899 cases.
The main act for which people have been penalised is for dumping garbage in open places. There could be various reasons for garbage being strewn around, but mainly it is still the absence of a heightened civic sense among the people and the lack of a proper garbage disposal system by the local governing body. This is one issue for which the people cannot just blame the government. Admittedly, the government does lack in proper garbage treatment practices, but it is the people who dump garbage in the open, and so it is the people who are responsible for this. Plainly, the roadside is not the place to dump garbage.
For years it has been a common practice of a large number of people to fling garbage out of moving vehicles. It continues till the present with people leaving from home with their garbage bag and dropping it by the roadside as they proceed to their place of work. This is a scene that can be witnessed across Goa every morning and is the reason for garbage mounds in certain places that grow daily. Goa does blame tourists for causing roadside garbage, but to be clear, it is not just the tourists who do it, but the residents of the State are as much at fault as the visitors. And this denotes a complete lack of civic sense.
This dumping on the roadside may, to some people, be the easiest manner of disposing garbage as there is no need to segregate it at source. It, however, creates the larger problem of not just clearing up the garbage that has been strewn, but then disposing it as Goa’s limited garbage management plants work on segregated garbage and if the separation of this wet and dry waste isn’t done at source, it creates further problems at the waste management unit. That is also to be considered as waste management plants can get damaged due to unsegregated waste.
People have to shoulder the responsibility of keeping the State clean and assess the role they will play in the cleanliness of the place. Dumping garbage in another panchayat area, or in any public place, is not acceptable and the police action in penalising them is to be appreciated. If not for the penalties that have been imposed the enormity of the problem would possibly not have been known. What is also not known is whether being penalised once has acted as a deterrent and the person has stopped dumping garbage, or has found another spot that is not under surveillance. The government may do well to impose higher fines on persons caught dumping garbage to put an end to the practice.
