MARGAO: Thursday was the day of the second joint inspection of Sonsoddo, to check on the progress of work, as announced by the Chief Minister earlier this month, however, this time, unlike last time, the inspection was carried out by the chairperson of the MMC on his own.
Speaking to the media after the inspection, he acknowledged that he had indeed conducted an "inspection."
"Lots is still to be done. Major work is yet to be seen," Mr Savio Coutinho said and when asked if the promised machinery had been put in place he said "not yet."
At the site, one side of the garbage has been capped with mud. And according to municipality reports, some 38 labourers and two pieces of heavy machinery are being deployed. However, according to sources, after all the hype about picking up rejects from the site, the MMC has only picked up some 5 truck of rejects from the site till date, with the work still being done manually. The Sonsoddo dump sees some 50 tonne of waste being picked up and dumped there everyday.
It maybe recalled that a report in a section of the media that the situation in Sonsodo was worsening had seen the Urban Development Minister, Mr Joaquim Alemao calling for a joint inspection on March 4.
At that inspection, that included the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat, the Urban Development Minister, Mr Joaquim Alemao, the Margao Municipal Council chairperson, Mr Savio Coutinho and Fomento officials, another inspection was fixed on March 25.
At that time, the Chief Minister had told media that he could see that the work had "indeed started" and informed that Fomento would shortly press into service 4 machines, each having a segregation capacity of 40 tonne per hour.
Mr Gupta of Fomento also told media that they had indeed started the work and at that time there were 47 labourers on site.
A closed door meeting too was held between the Chief Minister, Mr Alemao, Mr Coutinho and Mr Gupta, that saw Fomento promising to try and complete the segregation of the waste before the monsoon. Also Fomento were apparently asked to submit their schedule of their work till the advent of the monsoon.
