Garbage Disposal needs Political Will Tomazinho Cardozo
The problem of garbage disposal is becoming more and more serious day by day in the state of Goa. Goa being a state of touristic importance, this problem should have been solved on priority basis but this has not been the case. It is for this reason that today the villagers of Curca are up in arms against the authorities as the clean environment of the village is disturbed by dumping garbage there brought from outside. Earlier similar problems occurred in Sonsoddo in Salcete, Mapusa in Bardez and Sada in Mormugao.. Saligao villagers also protested against the dumping of garbage on the Saligao Hill. These problems, whenever they come up, are solved temporarily by the concerned authorities. No permanent solution has been found. The problem continues to exist. Hence there is an urgent need for the Government to take a serious view of this problem and act on priority basis to solve it. In 1996, when I was the Speaker of the Goa Legislative Assembly, I had visited Bangalore at the invitation of the Speaker of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. Whenever I visited any state, I used to visit a Primary School, a Primary Health Centre and a Village Panchayat Office without fail, in order to judge where our state of Goa stands as far as education, health care and Panchayati Raj system are concerned. This was always in addition to my official work. When I expressed my desire to visit the above mentioned places, the Speaker told me to go ahead and also advised me to visit the Garbage disposal plant which was situated hardly 12 kms from Bangalore proper. I visited the said plant Sunrays Composts privately owned by one Dr. A.V. N. Acharia, a MBBS Graduate and an environmental activist. He had imported that technology from France where he was working prior to coming to India. Dr. Acharia, very proud of his project, took me around explaining each and every aspect of the working of the plant. It covers about 15 to 20 thousand square meters of land encircled with a 3 meters high compound wall. It is hardly 700 meters away from a residential colony. He took me through the tons of garbage which were being treated scientifically on the open ground inside the compound. There was no foul smell at all. There were no flies, mosquitoes or crows anywhere on the site. There were no rats or cockroaches too. I was surprised to see that there was no disturbance to the environment inspite of hundreds of truckloads of garbage being dumped there. After treating the garbage scientifically, it was transferred to the plant where plastic and inorganic material from the garbage was automatically separated at different levels and only organic garbage was allowed at the final stage where it was converted into manure. This manure called Black Gold was marketed through Excel Industries Limited. The total cost of the plant then was about Rs. 3.5 crores. It required about 300 tones of garbage everyday. One thing to be noted is that from outside it appeared as a garden and secondly a residential colony being so close, the residents of the area did not object to it. This was because Solid waste was disposed scientifically, eco-friendly dump sites were developed, the process involved bio-technology and there was no foul smell, there were no flies no mosquitoes, rats and cockroaches. On the other hand garbage was converted into bio-organic manure, useful in agriculture. Polluting gases, fire hazards and dust were avoided and non bio- degradables like plastics, glasses were separated and recycled. I felt that such a garbage disposal plant was an ideal one for our tiny state of Goa. I requested Dr. Acharia to give me a profile of the said project so that Goa could set up such a plant and solve the garbage problem once and for all. Dr. Acharia obliged. As soon as I came to Goa, I submitted the said project to the then Chief Minister requesting him to take concrete action in the matter. The request was not considered and the reason given to me was that Goa could not produce 300 tones of garbage per day. Dr. Acharia had also informed that machinery processing smaller amount of garbage could also be developed. Almost 9 years have passed. Nothing has improved. On the contrary, garbage disposal is becoming worse day by day. At least now, the Government has to act with determination to solve this serious problem which is threatening our environment and creating disturbance in the peaceful lives of our people. This can affect our tourism activities adversely. I am sending a copy of the said project to the present Chief Minister now. Let him apply his mind to it. It will be advisable if he sends a team of his officers to Bangalore to learn more about this project. Establishing an eco-friendly garbage disposal plant at this time will definitely save Goa from environmental, economic and social disaster.
