TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: The laborious and seemingly never ending process to construct a solid waste management plant at Bainguinim does not seem to take off the ground. The latest spanner in the works has come from Corporation of the city of Panaji mayor, Surendra Furtado, who at a recent media interaction expressed his reservations about the project arguing that there were a lot of interests against the project including the Goa Church and purportedly the builder lobby.
The project which was to be initially handled by Corporation of the City of Panaji was handed over to the Goa State Industrial Development Corporation recently. The GSIDC had issued a request for qualification for short-listing bidders and received six bids.
The project is to have the capacity to process solid waste of 100 tonnes per day and will have a recycling, sorting, segregation, bio-methanation and in-vessel composting.
‘I don’t think the project will come up,” the Mayor told media pointing out that there were various groups against the project which had been held up for almost a decade even a Tiswadi sits on a ticking garbage bomb. The total land measures 1.70 lakh sq mt.
“Yes the work has been handed over to GSIDC,” CCP commissioner, Sanjit Rodrigues, who is also the managing director of the GSIDC had told media then, even as the CCP is under pressure for having picked up eco-sensitive zone for setting up a segregation unit right at the entrance of the capital.
“There is 25,000 sq mts in Taleigao. A compound wall has already been constructed. The St Cruz MLA has been kind enough to offer it to us,” the mayor said informing that this land initially belonged to the Goa University.
The various interests – vested or otherwise – have been dragging their feet even as the issue is sub judice and the Goa State Pollution Control Board being asked to file a report on the status of garbage disposal in various panchayats including the CCP. The report is not very flattering with most local bodies not up to the mark in waste collection and disposal.
