Paradise Lost

Who will clean up the mess in Goa? / Politics

- Ajachi Chakrabarti

If you head north-east from Margao, away from the beautiful beaches of south Goa, you will soon come upon something that gives you an idea of the state of the state as it prepares for a legislative assembly election on 4 February. Chances are you will smell it before you see it. Some five kilometres from Margao lies the Sonsoddo dump, a hillside that has collected waste from Goa’s commercial capital for over 40 years. When the veteran environmental activist Claude Alvares’s Goa Foundation took over management of the site in 2008, he estimated that it contained 120,000 tonnes of garbage. That amount has only grown, as over 50 tonnes of unsegregated waste is trucked in every day. As you would expect, the dump attracts legions of flies and other pests, and is home to over 400 stray dogs.

Every year, monsoon rains mix with the garbage, causing toxic leachate to pollute the area’s groundwater. Many residents have been forced to leave as a result. There is talk of “scientific capping” of the dump, but the ad hoc measure applied so far has been to cover the garbage with tarpaulin sheets. This costs the Margao municipality over ₹10 lakh a year, and is not very effective. Over the years, there have been numerous allegations of over billing and corruption in the process. The exercise is also inevitably delayed until after the first rains, the sheets are sometimes blown off by the wind, and the resident dogs often chew them up.

This is part of a long history of dysfunction in the dump’s management.