MARGAO: Margao Municipal Council’s door-to-door waste collection scheme started on a controversial note on Tuesday.
Even as the exercise was labelled by many as a “farce” with the civic body moving door to door for only an hour in the Agalli area of the city, opposition councillors slammed the civic body for starting the exercise from Agalli represented by former chairperson Arthur D’Silva when the civic body had conducted an awareness programme in Aquem area around a week ago.
Sources said Arthur and sanitary inspector Viraj Arabekar had a spat in full public view at Agalli over the distribution of bins for households. It is learnt that Arthur requested the sanitary inspector to distribute the 2000 bins to the Agalli residents, which was turned down by Arabekar on grounds that the household bins would be first distributed to the residents of Madel ward.
Bereft of manpower, the MMC Sanitary section started the door-to-door waste collection from Agalli with workers engaged for a similar purpose in Madel. Sources said the exercise was wound up after an hour, defeating the very purpose of the exercise.
In the meantime, Aquem Councillor Damu Shirodkar called up MMC chief officer, Narayan Sawant and DMA Elvis Gomes whether today’s exercise was carried out in Agalli on political considerations. Damu demanded to know how the exercise, which was supposed to be kicked off from Aquem was suddenly shifted to Agalli. “We had even carried out an awareness programme in Aquem which was attended by representatives of all housing societies, Margao MLA Digambar Kamat, MMC Chairperson Gonzaco Rebello and Chief Officer Narayan Sawant. Today, I was questioned by the residents why the exercise was shifted to Agalli,” Damu questioned.
