Sonsoddo fire: Environment and lives are at stake
The Sonsoddo dump bordering Curtorim, Raia and Fatorda and which is the main waste discarding ground of all of Margaos waste, managed by Margao Municipal Council (MMC), is as old as Goas Liberation from the Portuguese.
While travelling to my maternal village of Curtorim from Margao, after the public transport buses crossed Chowgule College and headed to the Santimol-Maina-Curtorim junction, as children we were advised to pinch our noses, the stink of Sonsoddo engulfed the entire bus, causing much air pollution in the area.
Then, way back in the mid-70s, Sonsoddo was a pile of garbage infested by pigs, cattle, stray dogs, crows, vultures and by evening howling foxes. Today its a monstrous dump of anything from broken toilet commodes, bottles, tube lights to used shoes to the worst non-biodegradable plastic.
As years went by, Fatorda Constituency was created, Margao was converted into a concrete jungle and the size of the waste disposed at Sonsoddo swelled.
As the population and commercial establishments swelled, the respective governments failed to put a systematic garbage disposal plan in place for the civic as well as panchayat areas.
Plus, there is freehold disposal of waste by passers-by and cases of medical waste being dumped have also come to light from time to time.
If the question of accountability is put forth The MMC comes to mind as also years of public representatives namely Francisco Sardinha as MLA and MP, Digambar Kamat, Damu Naik, Aleixo Reginaldo Lourenco and later Vijai Sardesai. All the above have had the best of opportunities to work the dump out and restore the Sonsoddo hillock into a green belt, like it was before the mess started to unfold.
It has not happened, nor did the great fire of May 2019, that raged well through into the 32nd Statehood Day of Goa, teach us any lessons we needed to learn. In 2019, Sonsoddo fires raged for around a fortnight, it couldn’t be contained, the enzyme sprays bought allegedly for a high cost exposed the hollowness of vision of those at the helm then at MMC and MLA level.
A silently suffering public, who live in sync and fear of politicians, are unable to raise their voice.
Being senior-most, Kamat and Sardinha could have guided the junior brigade of Damu, Reginaldo and Vijai to tackle Sonsoddo, but acts like the Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA) etc didnt help the cause.
The only result that came out was a waste of tax-payers money which wasnt used judiciously.
Many NGOs came in, activists and also political parties tried to capitalise on the Sonsoddo issue initially to no closure.
The Sonsoddo saga continued! What do we wait for? For the lives to be lost? For an outbreak of another pandemic at Sonsoddo
The MMC which works largely via the MLAs affiliated to it needs to pull up its socks and engage in a better game plan for clearing the dump at the earliest.
There has to be a joint effort by the Margao-Fatorda-Curtorim MLAs and all along this has not happened. When the fires rage the political class goes underground while firemen and the public are left to battle the job.
Will the new government to be sworn in post-March 10 poll results make resolving Sonsoddo embryology their priority No 1?