Transportation of waste to Cacora plant disrupted as truck repairs are delayed
Dry waste had piled up inside the MRF shed at Sonsodo, which was engulfed by fire in the wee hours of Sunday.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Guess what has caused the pile-up of dry waste at the Sonsodo waste management site, the second time in the last two and a half months, derailing the transportation of the city’s waste to the Cacora waste treatment plant?
Well, administrative issues seem to have once again put spokes in the smooth transportation of the city’s dry waste to Cacora.
In fact, if the shortage of baling strips had left tons of dry waste unattended at Sonsodo in early September, creating a dry waste mound, the delay in the sanctioning of repair bills for Municipal trucks is cited as the cause behind the latest pile-up of dry waste at Sonsodo.
A post-mortem conducted by the Margao municipal babus of the dry waste pile-up, which was engulfed by fire in the early hours of Sunday, has identified a host of factors that have led to the dry waste taking the shape of a mound.
A meeting chaired by Margao Municipal Chief Officer Melvyn Vaz with officials from the technical section, accounts, and others revealed that there was no timely sanctioning of bills for the repairs of trucks transporting dry waste to Cacora.
“How can you expect the field workers to transport the dry waste to Cacora when the trucks deployed for the work are stuck in the private garage for want of payments? When one of the vehicles is undergoing repairs, you cannot expect the second vehicle to transport the entire dry waste to Cacora. What’s important is that the vehicle that has been sent for repairs returns to the road immediately. But, what we have found more often than not is that the vehicles are stranded in the garage due to delays in payments to the mechanics,” remarked a senior official.
He added: “In early September, the dry waste was piled up at Sonsodo, causing a nuisance at the site and beyond, purely due to man-made factors. For, the baling strips required to bale the dry waste were not provided to the field staff, as a result of which baling came to an abrupt halt. The same situation has come back to haunt us again, this time due to the delay in payments to the vehicle mechanics.”
In fact, a Civic official pointed out that the vehicle mechanic had once threatened to levy parking charges on the Municipality if the vehicles were not taken away immediately after repairs.
The official added: “We do not face these administrative issues in respect of the wet waste for the simple reason that the wet waste transportation to Cacora from Sonsodo is handled by the Goa Waste Management Corporation’s vehicles. There’s not a single instance where GWMC vehicles have failed to transport the wet waste to Cacora. The MMC’s political and administrative bosses should streamline the situation as far as the dry waste is concerned.”
Civic chief alarmed by spike in dry waste
Margao Civic Chief Damu Shirodkar on Monday raised concerns over the sudden spike in the generation of dry waste in the commercial capital, causing a strain on the available infrastructure.
Around 15 tonnes of dry waste are generated in the commercial capital on average, which is transported to the Cacora waste treatment plant. However, the collection of dry waste has even crossed the 20-tonne figure on some days, raising questions over the source of the dry waste.
Saying that dry waste has increased manifold in the commercial capital in recent times, the MMC Chairperson has ruled out the possibility of the dry waste finding its way into the city from outside the civic limits.
