The movement by the citizens of Margao and adjoining areas, especially near the Sonsoddo garbage dump, is like a runaway train which will stop at no destination except the last one. The destination here is getting rid of the dump by ensuring the waste is treated scientifically and moved out and the new plant constructed by Fomento Green functions, with segregated garbage brought to it. While there will be conflicts and severe differences of opinion on what to do with the waste – cap it or cart it, there has been a success which outscores any of these conflicts. And the success is this. The inertia, slackness and sheer incompetency of the councillors, the MMC and to a certain extent Fomento Green, has been replaced by the angry passion, the restlessness and the urge to make the MMC deliver at any cost, by a section of the people of Margao. And THIS is the runaway train.
Currently the movement is being run by the coming together of various groups like Citizens for Sonsoddo, Costa Ground Bachao Activists, Borda Citizens Forum and the Navelim consumer and Citizens Forum. And spear headed by the emerging activist Advocate Rajeev Gomes. Herald and HCN, our TV arm can humbly claim to have played a small part of playing catalyst is giving a forum for a lot of angst of the people to be vented at the historic “Battle for Margao” discussion and people’s participation at the BPS club on June 23.
On July 1 Saturday, the citizens of Margao proved that they meant business. The Chairperson of the MMC Arthur D’Silva had committed during the Battle for Margao meeting on June 23, to speaking to his councillors and call an extra ordinary meeting of the MMC to discuss threadbare all outstanding issues regarding garbage collection, transportation and treatment. He perhaps thought that would be the end of it. Come July 1, Citizen’s groups stormed in to ask why was the meeting not called and managed to get the hapless Chairperson to assure that an extraordinary meeting would indeed be called and that the Sonsoddo dump would be covered with trapaulin by July 22.
These are very small victories in a long-long battle. And an even longer war. The battle is to solve the garbage problem of Margao. The war is to make the government more accountable to the people.
The battle for solving the garbage problem will revolve around getting a contractor to start door to door garbage collection in a segregated manner and doing so, after a proper information and awareness programme is rolled out. The second is admitting that there are differences even within government agencies over capping the dump or carting the garbage away. This can be addressed by going back to the Concession Agreement signed between Fomento Green and the Margao Municipal Council. This specifically detailed the carting away of the waste to an alternate site which the MMC promised to identify. This never happened. Then it was decided to cap the existing dump and put the fresh incoming garbage in a new landfill. But what needs to be asked is that how can these changes be made between a government body and a private player without cancelling the earlier Concession Agreement and drawing up a fresh one, by keeping the people informed.
To start with the MMC needs to come clean on the agreement it has with Fomento Green. Is it valid, is it enforceable, and is the current activity in accordance with the original agreement? If that has changed, and apparently it has, then where is the documentation to justify it?
But importantly, these are questions which will be raised by the people of Margao. This is democracy working in its purest form. Nothing can be hidden, and nothing can be brushed aside. There will be debate, discussion and even confrontation if necessary. But in every step and in every which way the MMC has to be answerable to the people of Margao. As for Fomento Green, they are the agency which has to do the work of treating and processing garbage for MMC. And MMC has to make them do it according to the terms it has agreed to with them. If they fail the people will force them to be accountable.
Bravo Margao. Move on and God bless.
