TEAM HERALD
Littering on the beaches of Goa continues to create a nuisance even five months after the Goa government hired two private agencies to keep the beaches clean. Tourism Department has now decided to clamp down heavily on those found dumping garbage.
The department has sent notices of show cause to four shack operators in Candolim, who were caught throwing garbage near the shacks and damaging vegetation.
Herald’s on-the-ground-reporting along the Candolim and Calangute beach stretch saw people – mainly domestic tourists – openly and blatantly littering right where they had just spent some time soaking in the sun. Garbage bins placed at various points are rarely used by the visitors, except by a handful of the more sensible ones.
A glance around most of the shacks shows remains of raw vegetables and plastics dumped amidst the thick vegetation. It isn’t easily noticeable unless a person walks close to the ‘dump yard’.
But shack operators argue that waste is not collected on a regular basis. “We are civilized citizens of the country and know our business well. Waste generated through our daily business goes in the dustbins but workers don’t collect on time. As a result, it overflows,” said one of them, speaking on conditions of anonymity, fearing a crackdown by authorities.
But others secretly concede that they are forced to use open spaces for dumping the waste citing the same reason. The two agencies – Bhumika Transport Waste Handling Services and Ram Engineering and Construction Company – that won the government bid to handle garbage on the beaches in the north and south districts respectively, have attracted a lot of criticism but have denied they are responsible for the mess.
The tourism department, that gets daily updates about the beach cleaning exercise, is aware of the violation by some shack owners. Director Ameya Abhyankar said they have therefore decided to tackle the menace with an iron hand.
“I have evidence in the form of photographs showing shack operators dumping garbage in the vegetation despite clear instructions to use separate dustbins for dry and wet waste. We have found this menace mostly in Candolim where we have issued show cause notices to four such violators,” he told Herald.
In a recent communication to the media, the department had stated that the beach shacks do not provide segregated waste nor have sufficient number of dustbins to store waste in a proper manner. Nevertheless, garbage is collected from these shacks on a regular basis as per the terms of the tender.
The agency statement also claims maintaining a register which provides a list of the shacks that give wastes along with their signatures while those shacks busy with their business or do not generate enough garbage, do not give their waste.
They said that they have installed 70 dustbins of 120 litres each, two dustbins of 600 litres each and two dustbins of 1100 litres each in these areas, despite being required to provide dustbins of 50 litres only.
“It must be understood that while the cleaning of beaches is a continuous process, the garbage collected in the process is accumulated and taken away later. If it was not cleaned on a regular basis, one would see heaps of garbage on every beach, which is not the case,” the department said.
According to the tender, the garbage collected from the beaches is to be treated in areas as defined by the department on tourism land next to the beaches, in composting pits and segregation sheds.
