The voting for civic bodies in Goa has taken place on 25 October and counting will be held today, 27 October. The results of which will be clear today itself.
Municipalities are the lowest unit of governance, and they are an important aspect of the citizens’ right to self governance. It is the municipal councilors who are expected to have a direct connect with the masses, and the civic bodies are expected to interact with the citizens regularly. As compared with the municipalities in other States of India, those in Goa have a relatively lesser responsibility. Many municipalities in India have to provide services ranging from water supply to massive infrastructure development.
I am under the jurisdiction of the Margao Municipal Council. The Margao Municipal Council (MMC) has a rather glorious history. Established as the “Camara Municipal de Salcete” during the Portuguese regime, the body has had in the past, many eminent persons who served as its Presidents/ Chairmen. But today, the commercial capital of Goa faces many challenges, and the outgoing Council has been incompetent to handle most of those. The new Council needs to get its priorities right, and work towards restoring the long lost glory of the Margao Nagarpalika.
The greatest challenge faced by the MMC today is of the garbage menace. After much ado, door-to-door garbage collection was finally started by the Council. But before starting the collection, two dustbins each (green and black) were distributed to every household, and leaflets were also given. The leaflets claimed that the green dustbin was meant for bio-degradable waste while the black one was for non-biodegradable waste. At my home, we expected that the MMC would collect segregated garbage. Accordingly, the two dustbins were kept ready meticulously.
But it was shocking to see that the garbage was not collected separately and both degradable and bio-degradable waste were dumped in the same bin by the woman who came to collect the garbage. Lack of segregation is the first ill-omen for an efficient garbage collection.
Also, the MMC took away dustbins from many road-side places, soon after the door-to-door garbage collection was started. While this was apparently done to prevent people from dumping garbage in dustbins and to encourage them to hand over garbage to those engaged in door-to-door collection, this step by the MMC was disastrous. Even today, garbage can be seen up piled at the places where these garbage bins earlier existed. In addition, many places in Fatorda still have garbage bins besides the roads, and the MMC trucks do clean the garbage from those regularly. Many prominent places in the town stink due to garbage being piled up. One prominent example is the cross-roads opposite the Fatima Convent School and the Margao Police Station.
