The Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) is expected to hand over the garbage treatment facility behind the Heera petrol pump at KTC bus stand to the City Corporation of Panaji (CCP) for operation by this month end.
Legal battle before National Green Tribunal (NGT), financial issue, series of election codes of conduct delayed the entire project, which was expected to be put in operation last year. All the above issues will be put behind ending the long pending need of garbage facility to treat the city waste.
The new site will handle all the commercial waste and only 20 per cent of residential waste. The new site has a capacity to handle six tonnes of waste daily as against the site at Patto having capacity of five tonnes.
“The entire facility is ready. Our task was to construct the facility and we have done it. By this month end, the facility will be handed over to CCP for operation,” senior GSIDC officer confirmed.
GSIDC had been tasked by the CCP to set up the scientific municipal solid waste treatment centre. “The delay in completing the project was basically due to the case before NGT. Post that there was financial issue. This was followed by series of election codes,” officer said.
The project was initially conceptualised more than a decade back keeping in mind the need for a garbage managing facility for the city. In 2009, CCP acquired land admeasuring 3,600 sq mts for the segregation and treatment facility.
However, the site was entangled into a controversy after the Botanical Society of Goa (BSG) and civil right groups opposed the proposed development, claiming that the facility is in an area marked as a No Development Zone in the Outline Development Plan or ODP 2011. The NGT ordered a stay on the work in 2014 and subsequently the deadlines for the completion of the work have been revised.
Subsequently, the contract awarded to GSIDC, also stood lapsed and had to be revised. The project, which was supposed to be completed in December 2016, failed due to two-month long election code which was announced in January due to assembly election, followed by month long code owing to Panchayat polls.
The City lacks its independent dedicated garbage treatment site cum facility and hence with commissioning of the plant behind Heera petrol pump, the issue will be sorted out to a large extent.
