Margao Municipal Council (MMC) chairperson Arthur D’Silva agreed to deadlines and declaration set by the Herald-HCN debate hosted by Herald Group Editor Sujay Gupta. The declaration was a whitepaper drafted from people’s suggestion.
The 3-hour-long debate had former chief minister and Margao MLA Digambar Kamat pass the buck on to the MMC for its failure of door-to-door garbage collection while he defended his tenure as CM and the chaos of changing from Goa Foundation to Comex to Hyquip to Fomento Green to manage the solid waste management plant.
On one side was Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai lashing out at the government and its failure to manage garbage or even to keep any other promise made by the BJP in its manifesto.
Despite being attacked from all quarters, a calm Fomento Green CEO, Sridhar Kamat, took all queries on the functioning of the Fomento Green plant while he passed the buck on the failure of the MMC to collect door-to-door garbage on time and bring it to Sonsoddo in a segregated manner.
On the other hand, Curtorim MLA Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco who frequently drives by Sonsoddo, blamed the government for ignoring this aspect of the citizens and being non-commital on solving garbage issues.
While representing the government, Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral blamed MMC as an autonomous municipal council for being a failure and failing to implement door-to-door garbage collection in a proper and phased manner. A calm Cabral kept comparing Margao to his villages and municipality of Curchorem-Sanvordem and even went on record to say that he is ready to adopt two wards of the MMC and educate the council on waste management.
Popular activist, Advocate Rajeev Gomes with a huge fan following and audience exposed the government’s inadequacy in making the Sonsoddo plan work and its attitude to be stuck in holiday tours and junkets.
