Mr. Stephen Dias writes: "In Taleigao area we have also farmers selling vegetables who are sitting on the road. In fact these products are grown in the fields are contaminated with the sewage discharged by the tankers in the night and also by the high rise buildings which have been mushrooming all along the St Inez Creek and most of them having no facilities of effluent discharge plant with no adequate toilet. These contaminated products I was told are sold in Panjim market and the Government should stop such malpractices and see that the public gets safe products. Earlier a plan was made to have a sewage pipeline along the periphery of St Inez creek by Panjim Ex-MLA Sidharth Kuncalienkar but it remained as a dream and failed miserably. This creek is in a very bad condition with foul sewage smell and completely polluted with all kind of materials including plastic, cardboards, branches of coconut trees etc."
Comment: The sewage and sanitation conditions described usually result in contamination of food and drinking water with E coli bacteria. Most local residents are usually immune to the devastation caused by Campylobacter infections. In a way, this may explain the low local priority assigned to resolving this sanitation issue. Visitors from other countries, on the other hand,who lack this immunity are exposed to "travelers diarrhea" and diseases like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) that last a lifetime. It is known that the Gates foundation, quite active in India, has initiated and supports efforts to develop and help implement sustainable sanitation strategies. Here are some excerpts from their overview statement: "In the developing world, 2.5 billion people practice open defecation or lack adequate sanitation facilities; an additional 2.1 billion urban residents use facilities that do not safely dispose of human waste. Poor sanitation contributes to about 700,000 child deaths from diarrhea each year." "A key part of our effort to radically improve sanitation in the developing world is our Reinvent the Toilet Challenge (RTTC). We are funding research to develop truly aspirational “next-generation” toilets that do not require a sewer or water connection or electricity, cost less than 5 cents per user per day, and are designed to meet people’s needs. Most of the projects use chemical engineering processes for energy and resource recovery from human waste." http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/Global-Development/Water-Sanitation-and-Hygiene Regards, E. DeSousa
