The Nov garbage tour file reveals shocking details of how
little was achieved in this so called study tour l One delegate turns
whistle blower, tells all l Garbage bins outside hotels also shown as
part of ‘study’ l 2 of the garbage plants visited had nothing to do with
technology to be used in Goa l When the “whistle blower’ threatened to
cut short trip and get back, Chief Secretary told him” We must speak in
one voice” l GSIDC spent Rs 1 crore on travel and accommodation alone,
not including local logistics and allowances
Team Herald
teamherald@herald-goa.com
Panjim: From the time they landed in the
ancient city of Rome till the time they left the heart of
industrial Europe, Frankfurt, our MLA’s, councillors and friends and
family did get a sense of European history, romance, grandeur and
architecture. In the middle of it on three of those nine days (Day 4 at
Milan (Allesandria), Day 6 at Innsbruck and Day 8 at Kaiserslautern in
Germany, they visited three plants for about 3 to 4 hours each.
The first plant at Allesandria, was just a composting unit using
mix garbage, the second one as dry waste plant using polistic
separation which separates dry garbage feed for dispatch to various
recycling units and third one at Germany as a wet garbage treatment
plant with a biogas facility.
According to a whistle blower, one of the delegates on that trip,
with a detailed knowledge of the waste treatment processes, “it was
clear”, that these technologies were far removed from the size, quantity
or the type of garbage generated in Goa. “There is segregation of
garbage at source itself in Austria and Germany and further there is
recycling of dry (inorganic) garbage and treatment of organic wet
garbage. The state of Goa has mix garbage without segregation at source
level”.
At Rome on day two of the trip, delegates were shown garbage bins
outside their hotel as part of that day’s agenda which read (verbatim)
“As Rome city is most visited city and generates lots of garbage is
manage (sic), so today we will visit different places in and around Rome
city to see garbage collection and management centre”. When this
whistle blower was aghast, as the day was spent in sight-seeing and
clicking selfies for Facebook uploads, he took Chief Secretary B
Vijayan aside and asked him to book him back to Goa, because this trip
was a junket.
The Chief Secretary reportedly said “No , don’t go, we must all speak in one voice”
Here’s what our garbage heroes did
Day 1,2, 3 : Rome,
Day 3: Arrival in Milan late afternoon (still no visit to any plant)
Day 4: Went to nearby Allesandria, nearby to a compost plant . (Time spent: 3 hours)
Day 5: Milan to Salzburg taking in the beauty and the sights. Afternoon and evening free
Day 6: Salzburg to Innsbruck. Visit to a dry waste segregation
plant. Curchorem and Saligao do not have the same technology. (Time
spent 4 hours)
Day 7: Salzburg to Frankfurt for rest and recreation
Day 8: Frankfurt to Kaiserlautern, to see wet waste treatment plant. (Time spent 4 hours).
The Herald has deliberately not contacted anyone from the
delegation at this stage for their comments, till this story appears. We
will then confront the Urban Development Minister and the Chief
Secretary as well as the Director Science and Technology to ask some
straight questions because these 36 travelled with over a crore of
public money and land and money has been allotted for the waste
treatment plants in Saligao and Curchorem. We need to know why this
money was wasted.
http://heraldgoa.in/News/Main%20Page%20News/Garbage-junketeers-to-Europe-lsquo-worked-rsquo-3-half-days-on-9-day-tour/88547.html
No comments:
Post a Comment