Valpoi: Three tons of garbage are collected in Valpoi every day and dumped at a site in Sayyad Nagar. As the waste piles up, the land-starved town is staring at the big question – where to dump?
The three-crore garbage treatment plant, once commissioned, will process 10-metric tonne of garbage daily, including bio-medical waste. It has been designed considering the future growth of Valpoi town in the next 15 years.
In the last two years, nearly 2,000 tonnes of waste was generated. It was supposed to be segregated at the primary level and treated at the site. Almost four years have gone by, but the plant still lacks machinery for reasons best known to the city fathers. Moreover, the three-crore project of treating the garbage of the entire town is turning into a white elephant due to lack of proper garbage management, political will and coordination between the government and Valpoi Municipal Council (VMC). The garbage treatment plant is now a mere dumping ground, where several stray animals feast. The site is largely occupied by trash, which includes domestic, commercial and medical waste. It is raising an extremely difficult question in the minds of the sanitary team: where to dump?
While the quantum of garbage generated by Valpoi is expected to increase, the infrastructure necessary to manage it is still not in place. VMC has ambitious plans to process and manage the 10-metric tonne garbage per day. But due to no proper guidelines from the government, most of these ideas have either failed to take off the drawing board or are poorly implemented today.
A resident of Sayyadnagar alleged that council has failed to provide garbage facility and if this continues, than the entire residential area of Sayyadnagar will have to suffer.
The VMC has also failed to ensure that waste is segregated at the source. “We understand the segregation is important at the source, but what is interesting here is that VMC staff collects the garbage from us and mixes it in the same truck,” stated a housewife from Valpoi.
“VMC should stop accepting mixed waste and create awareness among the people and convince them why the waste has to be segregated. If they fail to do so then it can issue notices to them,” told another lady.
Till date nearly Rs 50 lakh has been invested by the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) for this programme of VMC, but not much has been done by the collection team. The entire programme of garbage management depends on the collection persons. The sanitary workers involved in collection, transportation and disposal continue to work without wearing the prescribed rubber gloves, face masks and safety shoes which is a major health hazard.
Meanwhile, the journey of garbage from doorstep to landfill is encircled by the blame game. Nevertheless, the outgoing council has to answer to the public, who is aware that no concrete move has been taken by the last council. If the councillors are planning to contest in the ensuing civic polls, they will have to eliminate the point of providing proper garbage management from their poll campaign in Valpoi.
