MARGAO/PANAJI: The fire incident that took place at Sonsoddo nearly one-and-a-half month ago has set the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) back in terms of time and money.
If the absence of power supply following the fire incident has led to a delay in making any progress in the upgradation of the wet waste treatment facility at the Sonsoddo plant, the situation has forced Margao municipality to install a dedicated power transformer for the plant at an estimated cost of Rs 65 lakh.
Sources said that as the Goa schedule of rates (GSR) of the electricity department is due for revision owing to rise in market prices of electrical goods, no contractor evinces interest in taking up the tenders.
The MMC, therefore, set in motion the process of installing a new power transformer and drawing electricity lines to the plant and the waste dumpyard through its own funds, cost of which has been estimated to be Rs 65 lakh. The MMC is likely to issue tenders for the works soon.
In the absence of power supply to the Sonsoddo waste treatment plant, the daily incoming waste lies untreated inside the premises.
The municipality has currently shifted the work of baling dry waste to its land near the old fish market as a stop-gap measure until arrangements for temporary power supply at Sonsoddo are put in place.
MMC sources said that the segregated wet waste inside the plant will be subjected to bioremediation in order to make space for incoming waste. The plant is currently spilling over with garbage.
Over a month after waste management minister Atanasio Monserrate made an ambitious statement after a meeting held at Sonsoddo, that a comprehensive waste management project will be up and running at Sonsoddo within the next 12-18 months, there has been no perceivable progress on the ground so far. MMC officials have even expressed ignorance even over the status of the detailed project report (DPR) on the Sonsoddo project which the Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) was to come out with within days of the meeting.
