Margao: The broken down garbage compactor trucks have become a health hazard for garbage workers of Margao Municipal Council. MMC garbage workers are courting danger by picking and transporting garbage with bare hands. Workers can be seen all over the town lifting the big 240 liters bins and dumping the garbage into the tipper trucks of the MMC.
This condition has been prevailing for the last several days. Every single day the Margao Municipal Council collects over 50 to 60 tonnes of garbage. Since the MMC has not succeeded to get the system of segregated garbage in place, all kinds of garbage from the fish market, livestock, rotten vegetables, plastic and even medical waste is being collected mixed. Surprisingly the compactor trucks of the MMC have been off road for the last 4 days and the MMc workers are doing the collection and dumping job with their own bare hands. They do not use gloves.
There have been numerous occasions where workers have suffered bruises and cuts while handling garbage like glass and also medical garbage. The workers have not been insured or been paid special allowances for the work they are doing to keep the town clean making it the most hazardous job to do.
The MMC presently has only 4 compactors of which one has broken down permanently. The remaining compactors are 10 years old and with 4 compactors and 99 workers the MMC is managing to somehow collect the daily garbage from their jurisdiction.
The MMC has already started charging sanitation fees which are garbage collection fees from the public. An officer anonymously said “All 4 compactors are in a bad shape and are not being looked after properly. The hydraulics of the compactors dont work and in this condition the workers have been forced to fill garbage into compactors with bare hands in to the compactor” he told.
When asked the Sanitary Inspector Viraj Arabekar he told “We have already sent proposal to SUDA for new compactors.”
