PRATIK PARAB
pratik@herald-goa.com
The Margao town has been buzzing with news of several hotels and complexes to face the axe of Margao Municipal Council which are releasing raw sewage into drains. Herald attempted to dig deeper into the issue and found out that this ticking time bomb is created and planted by all the responsible authorities of Margao town.
MMC is aware that sewage has begun overflowing on the roads and the drains in Margao are choked to the brim. However, highly placed sources in the MMC have informed that there are 6 to 8 such residential/commercial projects in the Margao town which are in violations of Building by-laws. The bye laws have made it mandatory for the projects of over 60 flats to have an independent Mini Sewage treatment plant which when checked in several old and new buildings is missing.
So who is supposed to be blamed for this? Is it the MMC, the Developer or there is yet another loop in the chain that needs to be pointed out to? The Health Department has been issuing NOCs to developers and most of them are supposedly being issued without any inspections or factual checks. The MMC Sanitary Section generally does all the study of minimum sanitary compliances after they receive the applications of Commercial or Residential projects. This includes inspection of garbage storing pound, septic tank for sewage disposal, toilets and also the hygiene in the kitchen rooms. However, the MMC technical clearance has just become a piece of paper as the MMC has been forced to give licences just on the basis of NOC from Health Department. It is known that this practice has begun from the last 2 years. Earlier the MMC sanitary section did this job. However, the then IAS Chief Officer Navin Laxman started a practice of sending all the files to Taxation section bypassing the Sanitary section. An officer while speaking on this issue, said, “The Sanitary inspectors have diploma in Sanitation and is knowledgeable as well as equipped to handle the sanitation part. This job has to be given to the sanitation section and there are no two ways about it.”
It is also known that the MMC has resolved a year ago to re-direct the sanitation related files specifically of hotel and restaurants to the sanitation section. However, nothing has happened till date.
“The Sanitation Section is being conveniently accused of the ills but the lesser known fact is that they are stripped off the power,” said a officer from MMC.
Having said that, it is known that in almost all the recent buildings, developers have bypassed this mandatory clause of the mini STP. It is also known that the developers assuming that the sewage line will be started soon have not made the mandated high capacity septic tanks for sewage and now the sewage is being released in the open.
This is a fact which proves the Health Department has kept its eyes closed over the mega violations and have issued licences without any STP of the project. These glaring physical violations are getting rampant now.
