BY RAJAN NARAYAN

Unless we get rid of the political garbage there is no likelihood of finding a solution to the waste management problem.

THE WHEEL has come full circle. Sanjit Rodrigues, who as commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panaji (CCP) had initiated the chaka chak campaign during the tenure of Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister, is back as the boss man at the CCP. I remember being present at an interaction with leading citizens on eliciting if not enthusing citizens, or rather residents, of Panaji to cooperate in solving the problem of garbage disposal, which had assumed threatening proportions then as now. Sanjit very eloquently stressed that without the cooperation of the residents, the problem of garbage could not be solved.

It is very simple. Garbage did not come out of thin air. It is the citizen or the resident and the families living in Panaji who generate garbage. So much so, they have an obligation to not only support but actively participate in solving the literally mounting problem of garbage disposal. It was in the interest of residents to actively participate in garbage disposal because if garbage accumulates, it is them and their children and their grandchildren who will be vulnerable to the entire range of diseases, ranging from malaria to filaria to dengue to gastroenteritis.

PANAJI CRISIS

SANJIT, at that meeting way back in 2003, pointed out that the starting point of any solution to the then garbage crisis was segregation of garbage at the level of the household. The generator of the garbage, the residents, had to separate the wet garbage from the dry garbage. This was because the wet garbage was biodegradable and could be converted, through composting, into wealth in the form of organic manure. But unfortunately dry garbage, which predominantly comprises of the omnipresent plastic, is not bio degradable.

Unlike wet garbage, which consists of food waste, plastic cannot be composted. It has to be recycled. Goa unfortunately did not have a sufficiently large number of rag pickers or units that could recycle plastic waste into a wide range of plastic products like bathroom buckets and mugs or even plastic pots, which have replaced the more eco-friendly and gracious brass pots.

DOOR TO DOOR

SANJIT was realistic. He was aware that the citizen, even the most well-meaning of them, would not take their garbage to dump it in the public garbage bins that had proliferated in Panaji at that time. So he came up with the idea of door-to-door collection of garbage, for which each household would pay a nominal fee. And consistent with the imperative that garbage should be separated at source, Sanjit mooted the concept of every household having two bins, one for dry garbage and one for wet garbage.

SEGREGATE

I had assisted him in identifying potential manufacturers of plastic garbage bins. At the meeting, Sanjit displayed prototypes of the two garbage bins that every household would be advised to have. A green garbage bin for wet garbage. And, appropriately, a black garbage bin for the killer plastic bags which choked the gutters and compounded the problem of drainage and waste disposal. By way of setting an example, I not only bought a pair of the twin garbage bins on the spot but paid for two more so that those who could not afford the price of Rs. 70 odd for each bin could take them for free.

There was no coercion. Because, at that stage, the young and enthusiastic Sanjit had not become as egoistic as he became later when he thought that the IFFI could not be run without dadagiri. The emphasis was on persuasion. The emphasis was on appealing to the sense of pride of the residents of Panaji. Surely the residents of Panaji, the capital city of Goa, did not want outsiders and people from other parts of Goa to describe Panaji as a dirty, stinking city and think the residents lacked civic consciousness.

So the war cry was “Together for Panaji” (the slogan was revisited after the Curca debacle and Sanjit returned to the CCP). And it worked. The residents of Panaji did take enthusiastically to the idea that it was in their interest to buy the bins, segregate garbage at source and participate enthusiastically in the door-to-door collection of garbage. To ensure that the minority of residents, who inevitably were rich and the famous and the bold and the beautiful would have no choice but to cooperate, Sanjit ordered the removal of all public bins scattered all over the city. Never mind this meant that if you bought a packet of Kurkure, you had nowhere to throw the plastic wrapper.

CURCA MESS

IT was a critical time on the garbage disposal or waste management front, not only for Panaji but the whole of Goa. The then chief minister Manohar Parrikar and representative of Panjekars in the Legislative Assembly of Goa was not a resident of Panaji. His loyalty, both personal and political, was still to his staunch chaddiwala supporters who lived in the housing colony at Ganeshpuri in Mapusa, which was then the garbage dump for Bardez. In an act of cutting Panaji’s nose to appease his supporters in Mapusa, Parrikar ordered that the garbage of Mapusa and, indeed the garbage of Bardez, should be dumped at the Panaji and Tiswadi garbage dump in Curca. Understandably, the residents of Curca village were none too happy with the overload on an already strained Curca. This was what led to an agitation and the eventual closure of the Curca garbage dump.

DUMP ELUSIVE

WHICH meant that though there was door to door collection and segregation of garbage at source in place, the garbage of Panaji - except the political garbage - did not have a home. So the then commissioner of the Corporation of the City of Panaji, N. Suryanarayana (Sanjit Rodrigues was transferred to the Entertainment Society of Goa) had to decide what to do with the garbage that was collected so meticulously by the new army of garbage collectors employed by the municipality, but paid for by the residents of Panaji. Suryanarayana was summarily dismissed and Sanjit was brought back to literally clear the mess. To deepen the sense of participation, there were ‘Together for Panaji’ t-shirts and arm bands, no doubt modeled on the merchandising and marketing strategies of football clubs abroad. The best part of course was besides instilling a sense of pride in the residents of Panaji, the t-shirts also earned some extra revenue for the civic body.

Having put in place a system for segregating garbage at source and door-to-door collection, the next step was how to deal with the garbage collected. In consultation with experts in the field, ward-wise composting stations were set up. The idea was that the wet garbage collected from a particular locality would be composted in the locality itself. Which would do away with the need for a centralised garbage dump. As Sanjit pointed out at his press conference after being literally bullied into taking up the commissioner’s post again, after then having been transferred to the GTDC, the civic body was reluctant to give the Rs. 30, 000 he needed to set up composting stations even though subsequently spent crores on digesters which developed indigestion. But that is the core of the crisis that has overtaken garbage collection and waste management, not only in Panaji but in rest of Goa.

LAW & ORDER

DURING Parrikar’s tenure, there was law and order. Not only in the police force, but also in the elected bodies. The political garbage, at least in the early years of Parrikarshahi, were kept in check. Which meant that political garbage did not come in the way, at least in the collection, disposal and management of genuine garbage. The problem of waste disposal got compounded when the worst of the political garbage became corporators of the city of Panaji and the greediest and foulest of the political garbage became the urban development minister.

Till Joaquim Alemao became the urban development minister, there was no politics and plundering and looting in waste management. But Joaquim, like his cabinet colleague Vishwajit Rane (ironically the health minister) is doing now, was more interested in awarding tenders to dubious companies for setting up waste management plans like the one in Sonsoddo and the digester in Patto, which only diverted and digested money for Joaquim. With politicisation of waste management and Sanjit’s resistance to pressure from political garbage, the model that he had put in place collapsed.

The element of participation in the house-to-house collection and segregation of waste disappeared when the charges for waste disposal were made part of the municipal tax. Nobody was spared from the greed of the corporators of Panaji. Not even the garbage collection staff, who had to kickback to be bestowed the privilege of collecting garbage. The rag pickers who were doing citizens a service by collecting plastic bags, which had been casually thrown away by the residents of Panaji who went to the market to buy fish and ogle at the fisherwomen, were asked to pay a hafta of Rs. 10 each to the local corporator.

DUBIOUS TECHNOLOGY

THE result was that the corporations and municipalities, including the CCP, were offered high cost dubious technology options by the Urban Development Minister and Goa State Urban Development Agency (GSUDA), instead of the low cost participatory effective solutions that Sanjit had put in place with the cooperation of the people of Panaji. Besides institutionalising the segregation at source and door-to-door collection of garbage, Sanjit also set up centres for the disposal of plastic waste. During Sanjit’s tenure, and even much later, one could see mountains of PET bottle in a small enclosure next to Dayanand Bandodkar’s statue. Sanjit got in touch with small scale manufacturers to pick up the plastic and other non-biodegradable waste for recycling. Everything is recyclable, particularly scooters and cars, as many cops posted at the Panaji police station discover when their two wheelers were stolen and reduced to scrap by the scrap dealers of Karaswada, again in the neighbourhood of Mapusa.

Will Sanjit, who has now moved to the House of Lords from the house of the people of Panaji, be able to repeat his performance as in the early part of the decade? He can do so only if, like during the French Revolution, the people of Goa - at least figuratively if not literally - guillotine the political garbage which sees waste management not as a civic and health issue but, disgustingly, yet another opportunity to make money. Panaji and the rest of Goa can become chaka chak again if the ordinary residents of the civic bodies in Goa realise that it is they who are generating garbage and therefore they should participate in solving the problem.

They should be part of the solution and part of the problem. The composting stations have to be resurrected. The non-biodegradable garbage collection centres have to be revived. And people should take pride in the fact that their cities are chaka chak. It is not a problem of civic bodies or the government alone. On the contrary, garbage disposal and waste management is literally a matter of life and death for residents of Goa and tens and thousands of people from other parts of the country and other parts of the world who have made Goa their home. You can vaccinate the construction labourers against all the diseases caused by all the species of mosquito ranging from malaria to filaria to chikungunya to dengue. But you cannot vaccinate the entire population of Goa.

Prevention is better than cure, which is why the garbage problem should be tackled at the source - which means you and me who generate the garbage in the first place. And you and me have to make it clear to Babush Monserrate and to Manohar Parrikar and to Joking Alemao and to all the councillors of the Corporation of the City of Panaji and all the councillors of the civic bodies in the state that if they try to politicise and corrupt the process of waste management, we the voters will dump them at Sonsoddo at the earliest election. Let us in conclusion stay together for Sanjit and the people of Panaji to climb and conquer the Mount Everest of garbage.

TALEIGAONKARS SOUND JENNIFER OVER GARBAGE

RESIDENTS OF almost all the associations of residents of Dona Paula plateau, including Sagar Society, La Citadel, Ocean Park, Machado’s Cove, Vainguinim Valley and Nagali Hills colonies met Taleigao sarpanch, Jennifer Monserrate, and appraised her of their concern regarding news reports that garbage from Panaji would be dumped on the Taleigao plateau.

Monserrate assured the delegation that garbage which is not segregated will not be dumped in Taleigao. She added that door-to-door collection of garbage would be initiated in the area. The residents also suggested that the area marked to be dumped must be acquired by the panchayat from the university so that the former can legally streamline garbage treatment in Taleigao. The residents are now considering meeting the Chief Minister to impress upon him the need to do this at the earliest.

‘DUMPING’ FAILURE

TALEIGAONKARS have reminded Jennifer Monserrate that ‘dumping’ garbage led to the failure of all the CCP dumps - the Curca landfill site, Tonca, Patto and most recently, the Parade Grounds - because garbage was being dumped sans segregation. The residents also felt that the Mission Chaka-Chak campaign should be revisited so that Taleigao is not turned into a stinking Curca, Tonca, Patto or Parade Ground. They have also warned of indiscriminate dumping in the area, which will lead to pollution of wells in low-lying areas. This would prove even more grave as these wells not only source the needs of Taleigaonkars but water tankers also transport this water to other parts of the state. Pollution will render water from these wells non-drinkable and affect the health of consumers, who will then no longer patronise the tanker owners, thus leading to loss of income.

They suggest that, in the meantime, the land proposed to treat garbage should be acquired and proper segregation areas be constructed as well as put recycling systems in place. Biodegradable waste must be treated in the pit itself to prevent unhealthy pollutants from seeping into the ground. The locals have suggested that those not following the rules be fined. Panaji waste could be dumped in the landfill for a period of only three months. In addition to this they demanded that Panaji waste should be treated at the cost of the CCP so that the Taleigao VP would not have to bear any extra expenses. Giving the VP an ultimatum, the residents told the Sarpanch that they would be compelled to halt any garbage from being dumped in their locality if their conditions were not met.