MARGAO: The 200 daily wage workers engaged by the Margao Municipal Council to man the door to door waste management program are still to receive a set of gloves, masks and shoes.
But, that has not stopped 12 Margao city fathers and an engineer to fly to Hyderabad on Tuesday to study “sustained challenges in solid waste management” with the junket receiving a nod from the director of municipal administration on Monday evening.
Even as the MMC sanitary chairperson Sangeeta Audi told the media that she is not part of the junket since her priority is to streamline the door to door waste collection project back home, the travel cost of the junket itself will cost the Margao civic body around Rs 1.36 lakh with civic officials saying they have no idea on the dearness allowance (DA) applicable to the city fathers during their three day study tour.
Municipal officials said the civic body had no hand in the reservation of air tickets to Hyderabad, saying the tickets were booked by the city fathers themselves.
Audi sought to raise the junket issue at the MMC special meeting on Monday, but she was subdued by councillors who were part of the junket.
She told Herald after the meeting that she has not joined the Hyderabad tour as the presence of councillors is required more in the city to monitor the door to door waste collection exercise. “The subject of the study tour to Hyderabad may not be bad, but I feel that the presence of councillors was required in the city to implement the door to door waste collection programme”, Sangeeta said. “We are still struggling here to put the door to door waste collection programme on the tracks. The ground reality does not permit me to fly to Hyderabad when my house is not in order”, Audi said. She, however, declined to comment on the decision of the 12 councillors to fly to Hyderababd to attend the three-day training programme.
Councillor Pratima Coutinho said some of the councillors have no moral right to fly to Hyderabad for a training on solid waste management when they had no time to attend the inauguration of the door to door waste programme. “They had no time to attend training programmes held here, but are now flying to Hyderabad to undergo training there”, she said.
Councillors part of the junket and whose names figures in the list includes Chairperson Gonzaco Rebello, Vice-Chairperson Dadi Mayenkar, Arthur D’silva, Berta Cardozo, Raju Naik, the husband-wife duo of Sadanand and Babita Naik, Dorris Texeira, Rosy Pereira, Avinash Shirodkar, Laxmikant Kamat and Damu Shirodkar. Engineer Vishant Naik is also accompanying the councillors.
