Mapusa, a taluka headquarters and visited by people from Bardez and surrounding areas is facing a major problem of garbage disposal as well as parking. Even after having a team of 150 workers involved in the daily collection and disposal of garbage, to keep the town clean, Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC) has not been able to do so.
Mapusa Municipality collects 35 tonnes of garbage on a daily basis. It has distributed 36,000 dustbins having capacity of 5kg to each household for the collection of wet and dry waste separately. They have 65 workers who regularly collect the garbage door-to-door, and 50 workers to collect the garbage dumped in public dustbins. Daily one open truck, three closed trucks, four rickshaws and one big truck collects all the garbage from Mapusa which is then disposed at the Assagao garbage zone where it gets segregated by a team of 35 people.
Despite this team of 150 MMC workers and the cooperation of locals, garbage can be seen in various corners of the town leading to air pollution and also giving a bad image of the town, which draws a number of tourists, especially on Friday, the market day. While MMC says it is the people who are not co-operating with them, the people say that MMC has failed to control the garbage in the town.
Local resident Kamal D’Souza said, “Even after being the DyCM holding the portfolio of Urban Development and Health, as MLA of Mapusa he has failed to control the problem of garbage faced by the people. The workers appointed for collection of garbage are not educated on their duties, so what education can they give to locals on segregation? Workers are not doing their work properly. There is no proper procedure or schedule to follow on basis of which the people can collect their waste and keep.”
However, MMC Chairperson Sandip Falari countered this and said, “MMC is collecting garbage at scheduled times but if the people dump garbage at specific location after the dustbins are emptied by MMC, say half an hour after collection, what can MMC do? It is the people’s duty to cooperate with MMC.”
There are currently three major areas – Sim Khorlim, Canca Bypass and Mapusa bus stand entry gate – where most of the accumulated garbage can be seen. It has remained there for the past two days and not been disposed. Adding to the mess are the street animals who forage in the dumped garbage during the night scattering it on the road and the surrounding areas.
Local resident Sudesh Tivrekar said, “There has been an increase in migrants, staying illegally in rental houses and garbage tax is not getting paid to the MMC, so an extra burden of garbage occurs in Mapusa. We, residents of Mapusa, take care of our garbage, but it is those who are allowed to reside illegally who create the issue.”
MMC Councillor Tushar Tople said, “Since Mapusa is surrounded by different villages, dumped garbage can be seen at every corner of the town. There is no proper garbage disposal facility in these villages due to which when they leave their house, those people bring their waste to Mapusa and throw it on the roadside and not into the dustbins which are provided.”
He added, “To tackle this issue MMC has decided to place CCTV surveillance cameras at each corner and along with this, two officers will be appointed for supervision, who will also have the authority to fine people disposing garbage improperly. This may not completely solve the problem but it will surely reduce the amount of garbage being disposed on open grounds.”
Sudita Kerkar, who works in Mapusa, said, “There is a garbage collection service in our office building but people are not following the proper procedure of separating wet and dry waste. Because of this the municipality person has stopped collecting the garbage.”
