MARGAO: The solid waste treatment plant at Sonsoddo, billed as a prestigious project of the Margao Municipal Council
(MMC), is likely to kick start its trial runs by the end of this month.
The civic body has so far been unable to streamline its two garbage
management tasks-door to door garbage collection and hotel waste
collection-which are integral to the effective functioning of the solid
waste management of the civic body.

In what is a not-so-encouraging commentary
on the state of affairs of the MMC, the civic body has not been able to
propel these twin tasks beyond their trial phases. While the MMC
hurriedly began its door-to-door waste collection exactly a month ago on
an experimental basis, the hotel waste is also being collected by the
civic body free-of-charge for the last seventeen months, long after the
expiry of the “trial period”.

Currently, the door-to-door waste
collection exercise has been reduced to a meaningless one as the waste
is collected from a few houses in a haphazard manner, covering hardly a
few households. The exercise has drawn criticism from various quarters
for what they called the “half hearted manner” in which the MMC went
about the task without assessing the requirements of resources. This,
despite the fact that the MMC’s sanitary department had, in 2009, worked
out a detailed plan for collecting garbage from approximately 40,000
households in the city that entailed a cost of over 7 crores including
purchase of 3 garbage compactors.

The MMC now intends to levy
charges of 365 per year for garbage collection from all households, as
an integral component of house tax, that is expected to generate some
handsome revenue of almost 1.5 crore for the council.

Chairperson of the MMC, Arthur D’Silva, speaking to TOI, said that the
system would soon be streamlined after hiring more labourers on a daily
wage basis for the purpose.

As regards the hotel waste
collection, the exercise that was initiated by the MMC since March 2011
has been exerting a financial burden on the already cash-strapped civic
body. The initial idea was to begin the hotel waste collection on a
trial basis and then impose garbage collection fees on the hotels
once the pitfalls were identified and the exercise streamlined.
However, as the fee structure drawn up by the MMC didn’t find favour
with the hoteliers, the exercise failed to generate any revenue for the
civic body and continues to drain its resources.

Sources in the
MMC informed that with the garbage treatment plant at Sonsosso scheduled
to get functional shortly, the civic body is expecting the
concessionaire of the project, Fomento, to offer its proposal to
undertake the twin tasks. CEO of Fomento, Sridhar Kamat, when contacted,
confirmed that they were very much willing to do so.