On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 18:30:34 +0530, Goasuraj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
THE GARBAGE THAT NOBODY WANTS. Some days ago, as I was coming home from the city of Mapusa, whilst crossing the Mapusa Bridge (Near the Milagres Church) I saw a well dressed gentleman at the bottom of the bridge throwing his home trash into the river from his large bag. I instinctively stop my two wheeler at the end of the bridge (Bastora end). I saw that the gentleman had his scooter parked at the ramp and it was carrying two more bags of garbage and trash. When I called out to him to draw his attention, he merely glanced my way and continued doing what he was doing. I drew his attention again, this time with the mobile phone in my hand, and asked him to stop what he was doing. "Take your trash and dump it in the closest trash bin you find in the city" I told him. I also told him that what he was doing did not befit his educated types. To that he puts his hands up in sort of frustration and walk to the edge of the jetty to dump the load on the bank of the river. I showed him my mobile and told him that if he did not leave the place with his baggage, I would call the police. I had to repeat to him that I was serious. I told him that the river was not his garbage bin. I waited there until he re-started his scooter and left with his baggage. Yesterday, as I was going to the office, I saw a goods rickshaw stopped at the Moira bridge (Mapusa side), having emptied his load of packaging trash on the edge of the river, the driver was sweeping the carriage of the rick. I stopped my car, got out, and approached the driver. To my query, the driver told me that the rickshaw was from Bicholim. "You think that this is your backyard that you have dumped your trash?" I asked him. To that he coolly told me that he could push the trash into the river and that nobody would see it. "No", I said. "You will reload your trash into your rickshaw, now, and take it to the next trash bin and dump it, or else, you will be sitting in the cop station". He did just that and vanished. I was half hour late to the office, but satisfied. Today, being Sunday, I went to Porvorim to visit my brother and to borrow his Sumo for the day, since my car was giving me gear-shift problem. (My brother being away in Chennai). On my way back, at midway from Green Park Hotel and Mapusa junction ( close to the highway bridge), I see the Mapusa Municipality Garbage truck no. GA-01-G-3508 unloading its full load of City garbage into the river (Bastora side). I was a bit late to stop the dumping but just as well. By the time I got out of the Sumo, the truck had parked on my side, waiting for the workers to jump in. I approached the driver and asked him to get down. "Who told you to dump the garbage here?" "Nobody" he said. "I did it on my own because today being Holi, I was getting late" "What is your name?" "Rajesh" he said. "See Rajesh", I told him, "you re-load this garbage and take it to the proper dumping site (if there is one) and dump it there". "Patrao", he said, "I will put fire to it and it will vanish". "No" I said, "you will do no such thing. This load has plastics in it. You start re-loading – Now or face the music" He obliged, by shouting at his workers to get going. I watched the re-loading operation for 5 minutes and left, promising the driver that I would be back in 30 minutes. I came home, called up Mathew Pereira (Colvale) of Goa Foundation who is looking after the garbage clearance, reported to him the situation, asked him to come and get pictures and headed back to the site on my way to the office for a meeting. To my surprise, I saw the dump smouldering with a huge column of smoke and the truck in no sight. I took a round about at Green Park and headed straight to the MMC garbage truck parking yard, off Alankar Cinema. The truck was parked on the road with no sign of the crew. Mathew Pereira has reported to me that he has taken the pictures and that according to him, the entire load is a compostible garbage. That he has spoken to the Municipal Engineer and that he would do the necessary, Monday morning. He also told me that the Engineer concerned was protesting that no such thing is being done. Mathew says he told the Engineer that the person who has caught the truck red handed was none other than Floriano Lobo of Goa Environmental Action Group who is also the President of the Goa Su-Raj Party. In view of the above, the most critical problem that we face in Goa is the proper and hygienic disposal of our garbage. Our present government is more interested in IFFI-ing Goa rather than trying to keep it clean. What we see presently is that our house-hold garbage finds its way on our road sides, packed neatly in plastic bags. And these little packages do not remain neat for long, courtesy our stray dogs and cattle. Come to Moira and the Panchayat bin that is placed at the beginning of the Moira- patto (guinnikar) is designed to grow with the garbage. It has never been emptied. It has been full to the capacity for more than a couple of months. and the surrounding area has become a grave-yard. This, when our Moira Panchayat gets Rs. 1 lakh per year for garbage clearing plus the monthly salary for our seven ward members. The other day when I visited Dr. Wilfred D'Souza at his residence on a Sunday, he was being filmed and recorded by the Doordharshan. And there I heard him talk about the Goa Government's initiative in sending a team to Bangalore to study the process that is employed there to treat their garbage. It looks like our garbage clearing teams only passes learning tests but fails every practical tests. A time will come when we Goans will have to walk in the garbage, just like we do it in our very own Mapusa Municipal Market. And we have our Chief Minister who lives in Mapusa, shops for his groceries in Mapusa and is very very proud of Mapusa. A real "Mhapxekar". I would prefer that he graduates to becoming a plain and simple Mapxem-kar and makes the Mapusa Market "SHINE" like it was shining when he was a boy in the good old Portuguese days (if at all). I do hope that his RSS mentors have not taken away from him the good sense of simple hygiene and sanitation that he grew up with, in GOA. Floriano Lobo goasuraj ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
