Wednesday, April 3, 2013


Dirtying the tourism picture


In the absence of a garbage management system and given the volume of waste generated by tourists-often twice the number of the local population-Goa is poised to destroy its natural attractions and, inevitably, its economy.

Garbage is a misplaced resource and Goa at large has done precious little to tackle this issue on a war-footing. Any developing society which pursues economic growth encompassing industrial and commercial activities would necessarily have to encounter the challenges of garbage treatments. In Goa, with consumerism on the rise and the state focusing on tourism as a prime sector for its economic development, garbage woes are on a steep rise.

Hordes of visitors, heaps of waste

Although Goa only has around 15 lakh residents, the state is made to look after the material needs and comforts of over 30 lakh of the floating population, every year, and the number of tourists and visitors to the state are steadily rising.

All around Goa, the garbage generated is around 1,000 tonnes, which would include agricultural wastes and forest litter to add to the gauntlet posed by the domestic wastes generated by households, hotels, commercial establishments, restaurants, wayside kiosks and medium-sized industrial units and institutions.

Besides, there are no concrete, laid-down policies in place to scientifically tackle the hazardous hospital wastes and the toxic dumps of ash generated by industrial units, which contain metals harmful for human health and physiology, through the contamination of our soils and water bodies.

Planning & action at cross purposes

It is a sad reflection of our planning processes and our actions, which are both working at cross purposes. If we just take the Cuncolim industrial estate as an example, the plan document in the 1980s had identified Cuncolim as an industrial estate to cater to the needs of Goan artisans, carpenters, workmen capable of exhibiting their skills to produce products of quality for local use and for export too.

But the instability in the state of Goa government in the 1990s allowed the setting up of power-guzzling and highly-polluting units, which not only has destroyed the groundwater of the region, but one can see toxic-heavy metals containing wastes dumped around these highly sensitive areas close to human habitation and around cultivable soils of Cuncolim.

Only a few days ago, did Goa medical college get an incinerator installed to take care of biomedical wastes. But, hundreds of our health centres, hospitals, clinics, dispensaries and private doctors or individuals dispose their wastes consisting of syringes, cotton, blood-soaked swabs, bandages and other infectious materials, along with domestic wastes, all landing up in unscientific garbage dumping sites all around Goa.

All along the streets, national highways and village roads, wastes generated, both biodegradable as well as non-biodegradable, are a common sight. Our plateaus, hills, beaches, drains, comunidade or government lands, water bodies and rivers are carpeted with copious amounts of plastic litter, food wastes, commercial rejects, chemicals and even toxic wastes. We will soon have to grapple with the problems of e-waste, with free computers reaching all school children, besides those used in offices and homes.

A capital mess

Every government swears by tackling garbage but the results are far from reality. Today, Panaji is stinking. A visitor to the city experiences the strong garbage stench as he enters Panaji. The St Inez creek is totally polluted and leachates from the garbage dumped around Patto Plaza in Panaji are polluting the Rua de Ourem creek.

Current chief minister Manohar Parikar, as the chairperson of the Jawaharlal Nehru national urban renewal mission (JNNURM) sub-committee, had cleared Tetra Tech Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, as a consultant. Tetra Tech had submitted a detailed project report of nearly Rs 35 crore. The funds for the project were to be received by the state from the government of India.

But, despite personal meetings with Parrikar after he became chief minister, a concrete solid waste management (SWM) proposal is yet to fructify. He has promised to involve me in the solid waste management system for Panaji, as I was a part of the team, which had prepared the detailed project report (DPR) for Tetra Tech on SWM plant at Bainguinim under JNNURM.

Dangers at Sonsoddo

Further at Sonsoddo, there are plans afoot to cap the original garbage dump, which would be a major disaster in the making. How can you hope to cap an unscientifically utilized dumping yard? Such a capping will lead to pollution of the groundwater and further catalyze explosion of gasses, trapped over the last 60 years, since Sonsoddo was first used to dump garbage by the erstwhile Portuguese rulers of Goa.

The effectiveness of the freshly-laid Sonsoddo garbage plant are still to be assessed, especially in light of Parrikar's observations that fly-by-night operators of garbage management systems are a very common phenomenon. The dumping of Calangute garbage around the Saligao plateau has already adversely affected the Salmona springs of Saligao and the dumping of the Vasco garbage on the hill slope close to the Aantartica research station has severely affected the sea around the Vasco bay.

Over 20 years later, we are still unable to secure the Dharbandora hazardous waste management site and problems of hazardous wastes still linger.

Harm nature, harm tourism

Over all, our beaches are used as a dumping ground for restaurants, shacks and commercial e-wastes through burial procedures.

We swear by tourism as a source of employment and for our economic development. But, we fail to tackle the garbage woes in a scientific manner. Goa sadly would soon find that unsustainable levels of pollution of our beaches, rivers and our cities would harm the growth of tourism.

By ushering disease and pestilence, due to the growth and mismanagement of our garbage, we would find tourism counter productive to the quality of life of Goans and damaging to our economy, killing primary sectors of our economy, be it agriculture, fisheries, dairy or horticulture
BISHWA SRIVASTAVA
PGDM 2ND SEM

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