The Goa State Pollution Control Board has set September 30 as the deadline by when all 13 municipalities in the State will have to have complete waste management systems in place that include taking care of segregated waste, sorting and bailing of dry waste and composting of bio-degradable waste by upgrading the existing facilities. The treatment of garbage has been an issue festering in the State for long, with successive governments having paid mere lip service to it, even as the problem escalated and the garbage mounds around the State grew in height, volume and the stink released from them permeated larger areas.
The sudden decision by the pollution control board, giving municipalities less than seven months to put in place solutions and systems to manage garbage, that have eluded the civic bodies and government for years, already appears to be unachievable. According to the pollution control board, every one of the 13 municipalities in the State has to prepare its action plan and byelaws in accordance with SWM Rules, 2016 and implement them in a time bound manner. They have to identify land and submit a proposal for construction of scientific landfill by May 30 and the tender for the landfill has to be floated by July. This appears to be an ideal timeline, but practically it is just not feasible.
None of the municipalities are in a position to undertake this exercise without the cooperation of the government. The Saligao waste management plant is example of how long a garbage management project can take to become operational, and the kind of issues that can crop up before it becomes a reality. The Sonsoddo garbage dump that continues to be an eyesore and emanate its stink to a wide area around it, including a prestigious school which is almost adjacent to it, is another example of how a solution eludes the garbage issue. The board’s decision to ask municipalities to put the systems in place appears to be merely a move to demonstrate that it is doing its job.
It is not enough to put deadlines, that by past experience we have seen can be extended indefinitely, it is the will and the possibility of meeting these deadlines that is important. In the current case, while it may not be the job of the pollution control board to actually set up a plant, its directives are merely reactive to the directions it received from the National Green Tribunal, that asked all State Pollution Control Boards to initiate appropriate steps to implement Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2016 – ensuring proper collection, segregation and disposal of solid waste. The pollution control board could, for a change, perhaps become a little proactive and take the initiative to force the government to come to the aid of the municipalities to meet this deadline.
There are a few concerns that need to be addressed and could have been done before the directives were issued. Given the size of some of the municipal councils and their budgets, major garbage management systems cannot be expected from them. A solution to this is having garbage management plants for a larger area, comprising more than one or two municipal councils and various panchayats so that the plant not only gets enough of garbage to treat but also becomes financially viable. It may even be advisable for the government to consider a plant each for each district that would make it more feasible and easier to maintain also.
Garbage is among the many issues that need to be addressed by the authorities and this needs to be done by taking a larger perspective of the issue, rather than in a piecemeal fashion by which it is currently being done.
