GULF-GOANS e-NEWSLETTER (since 1994)
The Garbage and Goan politicians - the big kicks-back at cost of people's suffering by armstrong vaz | June 29, 2008 The Garbage About Sonsoddo Sonsoddo is Goa’s most famous garbage dumping site. It carries 40 years of accumulated waste. In the past year, some new forms of garbage are being added to the pile. Read on: The work order enabling Hyderabad-based Hyquip to takeover and manage the Sonsoddo garbage site was issued on 11 August 2006, for a total cost of Rs.7.84 crores, 15% above the cost estimated by the consultants (Rs.6.33 crores). Though the MMC was not consulted on the deal, it could hardly object because neither its Chief Officer nor its councillors were concerned with the site and the damage it had been causing to the ground water aquifers, and to the health of the people (including school children) in the immediate area. Earlier, for a total amount of Rs.17 lakhs spread over 1.5 years, the Goa Foundation had cleaned up the site (40 years old), detoxified it on the surface, erected a wall, brought water to the site, created a composting yard, prevented the entry of stray animals and finally eliminated the fires. The budget approved by government of Goa was Rs.25 lakhs, but the GF spent only Rs.17 lakhs. The rest of the money was swallowed up by the Council or diverted to other works unconnected with Sonsoddo. At the time we were working the site, only Digambar Kamat would regularly visit the place (in his characteristic Bermuda shorts) to check out whether we had any problems he could help solve. Without his constant assistance, we would have walked out of the site sooner than we actually did. Joachim Alemao was clearly interested in putting up an expensive-looking plant. He and Wilfred D’Souza kept fighting among themselves to solve Goa’s garbage problem because this service to the people of Goa promised them rewards even clean projects or large factories could not generate. Eventually, Alemao won. For the purpose, the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA), an Alemao fiefdom, issued a tender for selecting a consultant who would advise it on what kind of a plant would be good for Sonsoddo and for other sites as well. After many presentations from various sources, Mahabal Enviro Engineers Pvt Ltd from Thane, Mumbai, were selected as consultants. They have a good reputation in the field. We at the Goa Foundation were happy that something was finally happening. Mahabal Enviro Engineers completed their work of surveying the garbage needs of Margao and other towns like Ponda and submitted a report. I have a copy. The government went ahead with issuing a tender prepared by the consultants for a plant for the proposed site, estimating it at Rs.6.33 crores. Three companies bid, including United Phosphorous (Gujarat), Ramky (Hyderabad) and a little known agency called Hyquip (also Hyderabad). After assessing and evaluating the bids, the consultants advised the government not to take up the offer of the lowest bidder (Hyquip) because Hyquip had no experience, but to go instead for the next highest bidder, UPIL. Mahabal said they had come to this conclusion because: a) Hyquip could not show that it had operated a similar plant anywhere in India based on the technology it proposed to import from the International Biorecovery Group in Canada. b) The technology offered by Hyquip was for a 400 tonne capacity plant, whereas the waste of Margao was only 40 tonnes. It appeared therefore that the contractor was intending to set up a centralized plant for the garbage of the entire state of Goa. c) Hyquip had no demonstrated skill in the erection of engineered sanitary landfills, which was half the project work. However, as can be seen from what happened next, a deal was probably made for a massive kickback which in the present instance, according to insiders, was probably around 80% of the total tendered cost. After the news concerning the Hyquip deal spilled into the public domain, generating controversy at the huge cost quoted and tendered, the file was dutifully sent to Vigilance. It went to Vigilance because of some allegations that the rates followed in arriving at the tendered cost were not proper. Due to the controversy, however, Government was unable to sign the agreement with Hyquip (and till now, the agreement has not been signed). In legal terms, this means that Hyquip has been working – or, as we shall see, pretending to work – at the site at its own risk and cost. Of the tendered amount of Rs.7.84 crores, the work order required Hyquip to do the following preliminary work at the site for the amounts disclosed as under: 1. Reclamation work including excavation of accumulated waste and segregation …Rs.1,42,59,000 2. Earthwork in excavation of ordinary rock …Rs.96,46,720 3. Earthwork in excavation of hard soil …Rs.30,14,600 4. Earthwork in excavation of ordinary soil …Rs.19,29,344 5. Carting away excavated rock …Rs.24,11, 680 6. Carting away excavated earth …Rs.9,64,672 7. Carting away excavated earth …Rs.9,64,672 Hyquip took over the site on 10th September 2006. On 8.12.2006, within barely two months of taking over, and without doing any serious and measurable work at the site, the company sent a Running Account (RA) bill to the consultants seeking their approval for the staggering amount of Rs.3.31 crores which is approximately the figure one gets adding up items 1-7! Dr Raghunath Mahabal, the Mahabal Enviro Engineers’ chief, informed SUDA in writing on December 20, 2006 that a bill had been presented by the contractor. He said that despite repeated requests, “we have not got the formal covering letter authenticating and confirming the documents sent by the contractor.” He raised several other queries including the fact that the person who had signed the bill was not identified. An internal note of Mahabal Enviro Engineers from one of their engineers who visited the site indicated the following: a) Measurements before starting work had not been recorded. b) The work was not according to plan. c) The old solid waste was being taken from one place and dumped in another with no specifics of treatment and without any liners to protect from seepages as required under the MSW Rules. d) The Minister was insisting that the bill [of Rs.3.31 crores] must be certified for payment forthwith. The Minister, in fact, was demanding a good report immediately. Mahabal Enviro Engineers refused to approve the RA bill for Rs.3.31 crores as reports from the consultant’s engineers after visiting the site indicated that hardly any work had been done, nothing that could be valued more than Rs.5-7 lakhs, excluding the cost of any equipment purchased. On 26.12.2006, Mahabal wrote a second letter recording “major discrepancies in those bills…However, no response is received in this regard.” He went on to add: “The bill amount we are dealing with is huge. We will be glad to certify it forthwith provided we have engineering and logical justification and satisfactory verification of the same.” He concluded: “We are also time and again being conveyed that the matter is under scrutiny of Honourable High Court, Goa due to a pending PIL. This should be then a major cause of concern for us. We will like to do whatever is required quickly provided, we are paid as per the contract terms and sufficient data is made available to us for clearing the bills.” On 20 January 2007, Mahabal Enviro Engineers wrote another letter, reminding SUDA that “we are still waiting the most important information so as to enable us to assess the bill raised by the contractor.” I found all the Mahabal Enviro Engineers letters duly inwarded when I asked SUDA for the file dealing with Sonsoddo under the RTI Act. However, I could not find any response from SUDA to any of the letters though they contain this extremely damaging information that a bill has been sent to the consultants for approval without the knowledge or sanction of the agency. Neither is there any response from the Minister. Please note that I inspected the files in June 2007 (the letters were received by SUDA in December 2006/January 2007), yet a full six months later, there were still no responses to the letters. But SUDA did respond in another way. It swiftly decided instead to dismiss the services of the non-obliging Mahabal Enviro Engineers Pvt Ltd and to issue a tender notice for a new consultant to take its place. Perhaps the new consultant would be carefully selected to ensure that he did not raise any objections to any bill placed before him and would gladly assist the transfer of huge sums of public money to a large private pocket, provided he was also allowed to help himself to some of the proceeds. However, the elections came in between, so the letter dismissing Mahabal Enviro Engineers still remains to be issued. During the election month gap, the administration led by J.P. Singh took some initiative to find out why the Hyquip project was still stuck in the mud. It appointed a three member technical committee to examine whether the technology would work. The committee examined the process proposed and confirmed that it would work if sincerely tried. But the committee had no inkling of the financial aspects of the project and could not have had any inkling that these huge bills had already been raised. That is why, one year down the line, despite the work order requiring that the job tendered at Sonsoddo be completed by April 2007, and a sum of Rs.7.84 crores of public money actually approved by government for the project, the site remains as it is, with some superficial work carried out by the contractor. What this means is that despite technology and money being generously available, we cannot solve our garbage problem simply because of the continuance of monstrous-scale corruption. Here’s what you can do: raise hell with the following persons who can make a difference: 1) Write or call Digambar Kamat and ask him to personally ensure that the Sonsoddo project does not fail. He can do this by appointing a monitoring committee of three eminent or socially committed citizens from Margao who can ensure that the Rs.7.84 crores goes to Hyquip or any other agency for work done and for successful and timely completion of the project. 3) Write to the Chief Secretary, expressing your concern, and support the demand to have a public supervision of the project so that it does not fail. If Sonsoddo fails at Rs.7.84 crores, garbage management in any other part of Goa is also forever doomed. Fax, mobile and email ids of the CM and CS: CM: (off) 2224845; (res) 2730432 email: [email protected] CS: 0832-2419401/2; 0832-2415201 (fax) email: [email protected] _______________ ONE YEAR AFTER ARMSTRONG'S PUBLISHED THE ARTICLE, see the latest UNCHANGED SCENARIO OF THE SONSODO PARADISE, visit http://wikimapia.org/126575/Sonsodo-Paradise along the Curtorim-Margao route - a disgrace indeed! http://wikimapia.org/8676754/sonsodo-junction Goa World Goa Mog Goa SuRaj Super Goa (em Português) TGF Writers' Sketchpad www.colaco.net www.goa-world. .com/goa/ music/ - The Online Music Station for KONKANI Mahableshwar http://www.mahables hwar.com St. Mary's School - Mt Abu, Rajasthan India http://www.abusms. com http://www.goa-dc.com/flvvid/ikonkani.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTduCJkQNiQ GOA MAG ONLINE http://www.goamag.net http://mumbaihangout.org/radio/ Better one living word than a hundred dead ones. ~Proverb, (German)~
