D’Souza was speaking after distributing wet and dry garbage bins to the residents of Ward 17 (New Vaddem). He distributed the bins in the presence of Vasco MLA Carlos Almeida, Mormugao Municipal Council (MMC) Chief Officer Megnath Porob, MMC Chairperson Bhavan Bhosle, Vice Chairperson Jerry Fernandes, MMC engineer Vishnu Naik, VPDA Chairperson Krishna Salkar, other councillors and MMC staff.
“The residents should segregate the garbage before disposing it in the government garbage bins that are installed at various locations all over the city and villages. The government has invested Rs 1.5 cr to tackle garbage and has collected 150 tonnes of garbage from the roadside and sent it for recycling,” said D’Souza.
“It is not only enough to create awareness in the wards, even the schools, higher secondary, college students and NGOs should be made aware of the ill effects of mixed garbage and how to handle the wet and dry garbage.”
“The government is in the process of creating a system and infrastructure to handle garbage and once awareness is created how to handle wet and dry garbage, garbage bins will be distributed to each and every household which will be collected by the people appointed either by the panchayat or the municipality.”
“Once this process is completed, the government agencies will penalise all those who throw garbage along the roadside and other areas,” he said.
Vasco MLA Almeida said every house will have to pay about Rs 45 per month, which will help to pay wages of the labourers who collect the garbage from the houses.
Almeida said while the distribution of dry and wet garbage bins has started in his ward, more dry and wet garbage bins will be distributed in every ward of Vasco and Mormugao by August.
“It is my dream to make Vasco a garbage free city and this will be done in next few months,” he said.
“Once MMC completes distributing wet sand dry garbage bins to the residents of Vasco and Mormugao, MMC will withdraw all the public garbage bins and all those found throwing garbage along the road and in other open areas will be penalised,” he added.
