PANAJI: Three years after the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court passed an order on solid waste management directing the state’s civic bodies and ten coastal panchayats to comply with the directions on segregation, collection and baling of dry waste within their jurisdiction in consonance with the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000, only a few local bodies have complied with the directions.
Two municipal councils and five coastal panchayats have completely failed to comply with the court directions. The High Court had issued directions to all 13 municipal bodies and ten coastal panchayats in the state to comply with the provisions of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules, 2000.
Out of the 13 municipal councils including the Corporation of the City of Panaji, 11 have adhered to the order. Of the ten coastal panchayats, only five have been found to follow and regularly collect, segregate and hand over the baled dry waste to the solid waste management cell for transporting it to a cement company.
It may be recalled that the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court had passed an order in August 2013 directing that the municipal solid waste generated by all the municipal bodies and ten coastal panchayats within the state of Goa is required to be segregated into biodegradable waste/dry waste/non-biodegradable waste, and further, wet waste has to be composted and dry waste has to be baled.
The court, in its order, had also instructed the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) to inspect the records once in three months to ensure that civic authorities and panchayats adhered to the court direction, and had further asked it to file a report in case of failure on the part of the councils to adhere to the court direction.
Coming out with the statistical data, solid waste management cell officials, who have been entrusted with the task of maintaining the record of collection of baled plastic waste told this daily that since 2013 till January, this year, they have received 602.729 tonnes of baled dry waste from 11 municipal councils and five coastal panchayats, of which 60 per cent was non-baled waste. However, the figure further shows that those local bodies, which have failed to comply with the directions, have supplied 248.12 tonnes of non-baled waste.
The High Court order has been flouted by two municipal councils of Curchorem-Cacora and Pernem; they have failed to supply baled dry waste. The five coastal panchayats that have violated the court order are Morjim, Taleigao, Colva, Chicalim, and Fatorpa-Quitol.
Officials from the solid waste management cell have claimed that despite several meetings and follow-up with the panchayat bodies, they were only complaining of lack of funds and inadequate land. As a result, they neither started collecting the dry waste nor could they procure baling machine to bale the waste.
“Whenever we give them a call asking for their difficulties in handling the waste, they always cite the problem of non-availability of funds to buy baling machine and lack of land to store the dry waste,” the officials said. They further said that Pernem and Curchorem-Cacora municipalities have acquired the baling machine but they complained of lack of funds to operate and man the machine.
The court direction has clearly maintained that municipal councils should ensure that the plastic waste that accumulates after segregation of the waste shall be baled and stored at the council’s waste disposal site for safe and hygienic disposal. The order clearly states that the local bodies have to collect waste from all the wards and bale it properly and store at an appropriate site until it is collected by the agency appointed for the purpose.
