Just imagine this. Every morning a population of over 100 people hurls 30 bags of garbage and filth at your wall while raw sewage flows into a storm water drain. Such is the nightmare of Christopher Coutinho and his wife and their two children at Zoriwaddo –Davorlim in Sao Jose de Areal Panchayat and sadly there is no help coming from his Sarpanch and MLA.
“I bought a plot here and constructed my house at Zoriwaddo-Davorlim and moved in 2015. I thought I would live here, away from the town but not too far from Margao. But as I moved in, I had two challenges and I thought I would sort out the same with the panchayat,’ explains Christopher, who works on a ship and returns home after nine months.
He has been battling the garbage menace since 2015.
Christopher explains how his is the last house along the border of the Sao Jose de Areal panchayat in Velim constituency while his neighbours opposite the road come under the Navelim constituency and Davorlim–Dicarpale Panchayat.
Along this road, which is the last bus stop for the Zoriwaddo residents, is located the 20-point programme, a scheme wherein the homeless and the downtrodden could own houses and a small plot for a very small price. But it’s sad to note that a majority of the beneficiaries of the 20-point programme are all migrants.
The village panchayats of Sao Jose de Areal and Davorlim are unable to collect door-to-door garbage and neither have they placed bins or garbage stations and as such the residents hurl their garbage in bags in an open space, which was incidentally Christopher’s property before he built his house and now it’s outside his compound.
“I have approached the locals multiple times but they tell me that the only option they have to dispose it is, here. They’ve already utilised the open space of their housing colony to build a chapel instead of making it available for garbage disposal,” Christopher informed.
Even worse, Christopher shows us how the 20-point programme initiative has not provided an underground sewage pipeline network and as such the raw sewage from these houses find its way into the storm water drain thereby making it a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
“I have tried to sort out the issue but it’s not possible from my end since the area is not in my jurisdiction. This needs an intervention of the Navelim MLA Avertano Furtado,” explains Julio Monteiro, former Sao Jose de Areal sarpanch, who in his tenure of 3 years had banned any housing projects in his panchayat to avoid adding to the garbage menace but he was finally voted out. While Navelim MLA has assured Christopher and other Zoriwaddo residents that post-election in his new tenure he will look into the matter.
The sarpanch asserted that they have not yet identified a space for garbage disposal and hoped that the governments will allow panchayats in the vicinity to dump their garbage at Sonsoddo since the number of residents living in these villages in the vicinity of Margao town has increased. Christopher himself tells us how he uses the opportunity of owning a flat in the neighbouring housing board, which falls in the Margao municipal area as his only option to take his own garbage to housing board and dispose the same in a MMC bin there. But he hopes that panchayats will sort their garbage issue soon.
