‘FILL’ed to the brim with false promises

Residents of Margao are tired of listening to excuses every year about the garbage management problems in the city and yet every department seems to only have excuses.  

This is regarding the construction of the landfill site for the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) treatment plant at Sonsoddo. 

The present landfill site under construction is an integral part and facility created for the specific need of the MSW treatment plant; but will only be ready in early 2017.

This has left the residents of Margao, Fatorda and Curtorim in the jurisdiction of the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) exasperated at the inordinate delay. What irritates and upsets that further is that these delays are still taking place even though an high powered coordination committee (HPCC) was set up to ensure there would be no such delays.

Despite the head of the state, chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar heading the HPCC that consists of the three MLAs, MMC chief officer and chairperson and other government department heads, the root problem lies with the ‘coordination’ failure between these departments.

For instance, the Urban Development Minister Francisco D’souza who is de facto in charge of the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA), a key member of the HPCC, inaugurated the works for the landfill site on December 1, 2015. 

This was seen as the first major function post the formation of the new council and was celebrated with much fun- fare had given hopes to the residents of Margao and Fatorda that in 6-7 months time, the landfill site would be completed by June 2016.

However, the work on the landfill site did not begin until recently and that’s when the blame game starts. Fomento Green that runs the MSW plant and entrusted with the construction of the landfill site say that they did not permissions to start work.  

The Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) only gave permission in the first week of February to start work along on the grounds that they had required MMC to agree to a set of conditions including ensuring segregation at source.  

GSCPB had not given the consent to establish earlier on the grounds that MMC had failed to effectively segregate tons of waste finding its way at Sonsoddo every day. 

GSPCB former chairman Jose Manuel Noronha while explaining why the GPSCB took time stated that no purpose would have been served with the construction of a landfill site unless the MMC lay stress on waste segregation as otherwise, the proposed landfill site will reach saturation stage within months of its commissioning. 

“Among the conditions given were that only a only a maximum of  15 % of the waste rejects get into the landfill and that a record be maintained of all compost generated with details of analysis of compost along with usage . For this condition to be met it is essential that all waste collected should be in segregated form only,” said Noronha.

The MMC chief officer Y B Tawde claims it had given all permissions in December itself and that the other delays besides GSPCB were from the South Goa Planning and Development Authority (SGPDA) and Town and Country Planning (TCP) who had to give approvals for land cutting etc. 

“What was the purpose of the HPCC. They meet once a year and post their meeting, the foundation stone is placed in December and then it takes government departments who are part of the same committee more than 3 months to give permissions” said Wilfred Rosario, Fatorda resident.

Domingues Pereira, a Margao resident pointed out that it is not like the MMC did not know about these problems as the same delays were experienced two years ago when work on the landfill site was to begin but it had to be stopped as there were no permissions from the same authorities: GSPCB, SGPDA and TCP. 

MMC’s Chief Officer YB Tawde added that the MMC had repeatedly approached the government departments concerned to expedite the process knowing that the monsoons would delay its completion but added that the construction had already begun. 

“At present, the MSW treatment plant does not have a landfill site for inert waste. The work for landfill site has begun and presently the excavation work is in progress. We are trying to finish the work as soon as possible. However, a delay due to monsoon has to be also considered,” said Fomento Green CEO, Shridhar Kamat.

When pressed to given an approximate date for the completion given the intervening monsoons, Kamat stated that the landfill will be operational after the monsoons. “After the excavation, civil work, drains, bottom lining, etc has to be undertaken. Estimated time required is about 6-8 months of actual work, excluding the monsoons,” said Kamat.

It is to be noted that on December 12, 2012, an official announcement was made that the automated designed plant was operational and at that point, the only aspect that was left with regard to the plant was the construction of the landfill site.