Why Sonsoddo Stinks
The Goa Foundation left the Sonsoddo garbage dumping yard two years ago. Its staff had worked there for 18 months.
When we had originally been handed over the site, we had physically not been able to enter it very easily because the garbage had accumulated upto the gate and had completely submerged the existing internal road. We also found garbage dumped within the huge shed constructed by Hyquip’s predecessor, Komex.
Within a year, however, we had cleared the road; removed the stray animals; reconstructed broken walls or filled up gaps; brought in water and electricity; and security guards. We had also stopped all fires. This we did because of the close support then of Digambar Kamat who as MLA of Margao felt this was an unshirkable responsibility. He would come visit as often as he could, to sort out problems we were facing.
The Margao Municipal Council, however, remained mostly apathetic. The Governor came visiting from Dona Paula, but the councillors from the MMC themselves displayed complete unconcern. Though the Government had sanctioned Rs.25 lakh to the Council at our request for one year of cleanup, we were there for a year and a half and spent Rs.17 lakh only. The Goa Foundation itself contributed a full-time manager for the site which it paid from its own funds. When we left – more in frustration and despair than in anger – the Council did not have the courtesy to even send us a thank-you note for detoxifying the yard and making it environmentally safe for 18 months and disposing off more than 20,000 tonnes of waste while we were there at no cost to them. On the contrary, they were nasty enough to withhold our last reimbursement which remains unpaid till date!
When I revisited the site on Sunday July 13, 2008, I found it in a condition far worse than what had been handed to us earlier. This time only the road to the old Komex shed was open. However, waste was now mountain-size and strong leachate (contaminated rain water that had passed through the garbage) was eking out all over the yard and then moving over into the public drain. We must note here that this garbage dump accepts medical waste (including infected body parts from surgeries), dangerous hospital wastes, and some industrial waste as well. Leachate from such trash is bound to be extremely toxic and worrying for human beings.
We informed the Government that we would not run the site as a business proposition because that was not our normal work and it was necessary to bring in a full-time operator and plant. The Municipal Council was incapable of doing the job, at least at the moment. Neither would they be able to do it for several years, considering the kind of institution the MMC had become.
So the Government first tendered for a consultant to advise it on the procedures of recruiting a permanent agency. Out of 7 agencies that made presentations, Mahabal Engineers from Pune was ultimately selected as consultant. Mahabal was asked to assist in the finalisation of 12 garbage processing plants for all the councils. It was also asked to provide a permanent solution for the Curca dump site which had to be capped. Eventually, Mahabal was asked to help identify people who could set up specific garbage treatment plants for Ponda and Margao. Finally, it was asked to focus on Sonsoddo.
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 and sanitary landfill for the Sonsoddo site. It accepted Mahabal’s estimate which put the total cost of both components at Rs.6.33 crores.
Considering Goa’s need to conceal its wastes perhaps or due to the four month long monsoon period when it is difficult to work with garbage in the open, the consultants suggested an “in-vessel” processing plant. People would not have to see garbage accumulated at the site any longer. “In-vessel” means exactly what the words say: the garbage is treated in a closed vessel. Was “in-vessel” technology something revolutionary, some magical technology newly come on the garbage scene?
Actually, no. In fact, the Komex plant installed earlier at Sonsoddo was also an “in-vessel” technology plant. It failed. Our decision-makers have poor memories.
In-vessel technology is most foolish for a tropical country like India. Reason? We have eight months of wonderful hot sunshine, the best possible medium available – and free as well – for decomposing any kind of organic waste within days.
“In-vessel” technology is largely suitable for cold countries, where the ambient temperatures are so low, waste does not decompose at all. Therefore, it is necessary to in a sense “cook” or “warm up” the waste, put heat into it, as Komex sought to do. Alternatively, one attempts to send in hot air, or specially bred microorganisms, which can then do the breakdown. Komex was imported from Norway, a very cold country. The Hyquip plant has been sourced to Canada. Both countries need “in-vessel” plants, not India. And certainly not Goa!
If you would like to compare what I have just said with your own experience, take some wet garbage and tie it up in a plastic bag and leave it for a few hours. Open it thereafter and you will get a terribly rancid smell. The worst thing one can do with garbage in a hot country is to close it up in a container or a vessel. Garbage likes open air, if possible, frequent turning. These are best supplied in the open, not in a chamber pot or an in-vessel unit.
Three companies bid for the Sonsoddo project, including United Phosphorous (UPIL, Gujarat), Ramky (Hyderabad) and a little known agency called Hyquip Technologies (also Hyderabad). Hyquip Technologies’ tender was the lowest (at Rs.7.84 crores), yet still 15% higher than the tendered amount. After assessing and evaluating the bids, the consultants advised the government not to take up the offer of the lowest bidder (Hyquip Technologies) for the following reasons:
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 had plans to set up a centralized plant for the garbage of the entire State of Goa at Sonsoddo.
c) Hyquip had not demonstrated skill in the erection of engineered sanitary landfills, which was half the project work.
Mahabal recommended the next highest bidder – UPIL, since UPIL had ready access to both the technologies required at Sonsoddo: composting and landfill.
However, Mahabal’s recommendation was summarily rejected. A deal had obviously been struck with Hyquip, so Hyquip it would be, even if Sonsoddo got messier as a result. But which Hyquip? The tender form had been purchased by Hyquip Technologies. However, the tender was issued to Hyquip Projects! When was the substitution done? I am unable to provide those answers.
The work order enabling Hyquip Projects to takeover and manage the Sonsoddo garbage site was issued on 11 August 2006, which Hyquip Projects accepted on 18th August. Though the MMC was not consulted on the entire deal, it could hardly object because neither its Chief Officer nor its councillors were concerned with the site or with 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. In fact, they would have been secretly pleased that their big Sonsoddo headache had been transferred to someone else.
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 Projects officially 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 directly to the consultants (Mahabal) 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 to his organization by the contractor. (As per procedure, the bill should have actually been routed through GSUDA, but wasn’t.) 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 [from Mahabal] immediately.
Mahabal refused to approve the RA bill for Rs.3.31 crores as the firm’s engineers after visiting the site indicated that all the work done could be valued at not 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 GSUDA that “we are still waiting the most important information so as to enable us to assess the bill raised by the contractor.”
When I asked GSUDA under the RTI Act for the file dealing with Sonsoddo, I found all the Mahabal letters duly inwarded. However, I could not find any response or protest or surprise from GSUDA to any of the letters though they contained this extremely damaging information that a bill had been sent to the consultants for approval without the knowledge or sanction of the agency. Neither was there any response from the Minister. Please note that I first inspected the files in June 2007 (the letters were received by GSUDA in December 2006/January 2007), yet a full six months later, there were still no responses to the letters. This appeared to be quite curious.
But GSUDA did respond in another way. It swiftly decided instead to terminate the services of Mahabal Enviro Engineers on grounds of misconduct and to issue a tender notice for a new consultant to take its place. In fact, the Government soon changed its mind and decided to set up a three member expert committee to advise it on further work at the site under Hyquip.
I was called for a meeting thereafter on 16th August 2007 chaired by the Chief Secretary at which Hyquip officials were present and the three-member committee as well. Confronted with the Rs.3.3 crore bill – a copy of which I had earlier drawn to the attention of both the CM and the Chief Secretary – Hyquip officials blandly claimed they had done all the work for which the bill was made out!
Incredulous, I asked them where they could have dumped the 95,000 tonnes of waste which had been at the site when they took over it over. They told the committee with a straight face that they had dumped it in all the low-lying areas of Goa! Dr Mahaley – one of the three committee members appointed as consultant to the Goa Government – pitched in to legitimise the claims. He said that Hyquip did not really get rid of 95,000 tonnes of waste. The waste, lying there over 40 years, had reduced to a mere 20,000 tonnes. At this point, PWD CE Wachasundar asked Hyquip why they had presented a bill for getting rid of 95,000 tonnes. They had no answer.
It took me some time to figure out that here perhaps was the gaping hole kept for the kickback. A bill of Rs.3.3 crores was being raised without any work done. And it was almost 50% of the approved budget for the project. Was this the reason then why a new company called Hyquip Projects had been moved in to take on the project?
Hyquip was recently found attempting to rid the garbage from Sonsoddo at the Kadamba bus stand, which was objected to by local people there. If you look at the contract, the contractor is to excavate the waste at Sonsoddo, sieve it, take out the organic part and dispose it off to people who might want it, then construct a sanitary landfill and put the unrecyclable waste back there. There is no scope in the contract for final disposal of Sonsoddo waste anywhere but at Sonsoddo, that too only after a sanitary landfill had been constructed at the site.
But what is the real reason why Hyquip really got stuck at Sonsoddo?
It got stuck because there was no agreement at all between the Canadian company (IBR) and Hyquip Projects on technology transfer. What is there on the records in the files is well and truly astonishing. We need to examine it if we want to know how decisions are really made in Government.
When it bid for the project, Hyquip Technologies merely presented a note by IBR praising its projects in Mexico, China and Vancouver. Nobody in Government appeared to have read the IBR note. The plant that the Canada-based company was promoting in its note was for 650 tonnes of waste and cost US$19 million. Mahabal drew attention to the anomaly, since the waste being brought to Sonsoddo was a mere 40 tonnes, of which at least half would be waste plastic which could not be put into the composting vessels.
How then did Hyquip agree to supply such hugely expensive in-vessel technology from IBR for Sonsoddo? There was no discussion of either price or technology in any of the documents. The GSUDA simply swallowed the offer of imported technology without any investigation. The amount kept for in-vessel technology in the contract of Rs.7.84 crores is Rs.69 lakhs only, which works out to almost nothing (when compared with US$ 19 million capital cost of the project quoted by IBR). But GSUDA’s bosses were simply blind. They don’t read documents, it appears. Papers and documents are for fools. They had other plans. That is why they pressed on nonetheless, whatsoever the consequences.
How did this fact of pricey pricing bypass Mahabal? Mahabal admits Hyquip Technologies had no agreement and no technology with the Canadians. He also stated the other two companies had both. Yet, when providing marks for the three different tenderers for equipment capability, he gave equal marks to all three agencies!
But wait. How could the IAS officers whom we pay so much in salaries not notice these major discrepancies in the project? Surprise, surprise! They did! Here’s that story.
Sometimes, the results of an RTI application can be very uplifting. In the case of Sonsoddo, the Vigilance Department, the Finance Department, the Law Department and the Chief Secretary, Mr J.P. Singh, all refused to accept the Hyquip proposal. They raised stringent questions. They recommended its cancellation and retendering. They asked how the company could have been given a mobilization advance of Rs.68 lakhs in violation of the rules. The CS, in fact, put up a terse note advising government to cancel.
Amazingly, all this discussion between high-ranking Government officials took place in 2007 and 2008, after Hyquip had been awarded the contract!
Everyone criticizes bureaucrats. I often do. But several officers provided amazing quality of service to the public interest when dealing with a review of the Hyquip proposal. Since no one would have known of their role were it not for the RTI Act, I will also disclose their names.
The Vigilance Department put up a stern note within a few weeks of the tender being approved by GSUDA. Vigilance Secretary, Uddipta Ray, raised a series of questions concerning the legality of the tendering process. These objections may be summarized as follows:
a) That the tender form had been purchased by a tenderer with a name different from M/s Hyquip Projects Pvt Ltd., which was awarded the tender. This was against the rules.
b) That the solvency certificate of M/s Hyquip Projects issued by the State Bank of India, Hyderabad, was without a number or date and did not show the name of M/s Hyquip Projects.
c) That Hyquip Projects had no prior experience of work on garbage. In the absence of such experience, its tender could not have been accepted.
d) Even more serious, Hyquip Projects had failed to provide documentary proof that it had an agreement for technical collaboration from the Canadian Company.
The Vigilance Secretary concluded that a separate decision of the government would be required to pursue investigation into all these irregularities and take them to a logical conclusion.
GSUDA made a valiant effort to respond to these charges of irregularities. For example, in respect of the solvency certificate, it merely stated that GSUDA “relied upon the credentials of State Bank of India.”
About the lack of experience of work at garbage sites, GSUDA blamed the consultant for pre-qualifying Hyquip Technologies. With respect to the joint venture agreement between IBR and Hyquip, GSUDA said a document to that effect had “now” been submitted by Hyquip Projects.
GSUDA also referred to a meeting with the Chief Secretary on 11th of July 2007 attended by several secretaries to the government in which the following decisions were ostensibly taken:
a) The bilateral agreement between Hyquip Projects and IBR Canada should be obtained.
b) The project may not go ahead without these details, including the matter of how Hyquip Projects was entertained when the tender documents were purchased by Hyquip Technologies.
c) The secretary (vigilance) suggested that in public interest, the current tender may be scrapped and it should be converted instead into a pilot project. The actual work done by Hyquip should be measured and money paid for it. The consultant, Mahabal Engineers, should be asked to measure the work and verify.
A few days later GSUDA put up a note asking for a cabinet decision on the project. The note now readily redesignated the Sonsoddo project as a “pilot project”. GSUDA also drew attention to the fact that the implementation of the Municipal Solid Waste Rules was being monitored by both Supreme Court and the High Court. (We find both these courts being pulled out for airing from time to time in order to justify the continuance of Hyquip Projects at the site.)
The next noting on the file is by S. Shanbhoge, joint secretary (budget) dated 24.7.2007. The joint secretary puts down the record of his discussion with the finance secretary. It now appears that there is only a one-page letter from IBR Canada to Hyquip Technologies “which is just an intention and not an agreement.” It is also confirmed that Hyquip Technologies and Hyquip Projects are two different companies and the tender form was purchased by Hyquip Technologies. The discussion records that it would be appropriate to scrap the current tender and for the department to go in for a fresh tender.
The finance secretary thereafter indicates that scrapping the tender and going in for fresh tender are the only possibilities at this stage “to avoid further complication and public fury.”
The Chief Secretary calls for another meeting on 16th August, 2007. Dr.S.R. Mahaley and I are also present at the meeting. The minutes are recorded by GSUDA. The minutes actually record what was not discussed at the meeting and do not record what was discussed at the meeting.
The minutes say that certain decisions were taken including termination of the contract of Mahabal Engineers for “unprofessional conduct”. The meeting, however, never discussed this alleged misconduct. What it means to say is that the government had decided to terminate the contract of Mahabal and to appoint a committee of three experts and that the payment reserved for the consultant would now be paid instead to the three member committee who would now do the work of the consultant.
The minutes also say that the three member committee would work on the revised estimate including the modification proposed by Dr Mahaley but keep the financial costs within Rs.7.84 crores. The agreement with Hyquip would be signed once the government cleared the project. It was decided that the contractor would give a performance guarantee of 20% of the project cost which would be valid till successful commissioning of the plant and he would also operate the plant for five years; that the project would be commissioned before 26th January 2008 but the agreement would be signed by the end of August 2007. The matter would go to the cabinet for approval.
Actually, the main issue raised at the meeting by Chief Secretary J.P. Singh – and which is not mentioned in the minutes at all – was the bill for Rs.3.3 crores raised by Hyquip Projects for work which they claimed they had done at Sonsoddo between September to November 2006 (when there was no agreement with the government or GSUDA or even with IBR).
It was then decided that a “four-member committee” would go over the bill for Rs. 3.3 crores submitted by the company and verify the claims before any payment was released. I was nominated as the additional fourth, since PWD Chief Wachasundar insisted I be there. There the meeting ended.
However, I was neither called for any meetings thereafter nor consulted on anything. At one stage, the Minister for Urban Development made a statement in the Goa Assembly that the Hyquip’s technology at Sonsoddo had been approved by the Goa Foundation. I wrote a strong letter of protest to the CS on this. I also informed J.P. Singh in writing that while visiting the Sonsoddo site, I had found large quantities of materials for decontaminating garbage supplied by Eco-Save, the company owned by Dr Mahaley. I recommended that either Dr Mahaley stop supplying material to the project if he wanted to continue as consultant since this was otherwise unethical practice. I have no idea what Government eventually did in this matter. I have not seen all the files. But Mahaley continues to be associated with the project.
Since I never participated in any meetings of the expert committee, I cannot state with any confidence whether the Rs.3.3 crore bill was eventually presented to the three member committee or whether it was eventually entertained or rejected. I presume that good sense has prevailed and that the amount was never paid. But I have some lingering doubt since the Cabinet Note prepared for the approving the project eventually talks of the site having only 15,000 tonnes (and not 95,000 tonnes, as earlier). So was the amount eventually paid?
But to return to the file and the almost heroic conduct of the bureaucrats: On 20th August 2007, the Chief Secretary put up a note which essentially stated that the government was now at a stage of taking up this project “as a pilot project” which would be monitored by a “high level team of environmental and technical experts.”
GSUDA put in a note at this stage saying it had been informed that Hyquip Technologies was not a “sister” organization of Hyquip Projects but a “subsidiary” of Hyquip Projects. It also reported that the confidentiality agreement between IBR Canada had been dispatched from Canada and it was awaited. (Obviously, these technology providers in both Canada and India still do not know of the advent of fax machines or email.)
On 3rd September, GSUDA recorded in the file that the confidentiality agreement between IBR and Hyquip had arrived and that there was now a letter from IBR Canada offering support for the Goa Project. It also indicated that there was now a document in the form of an agreement between Hyquip Projects and Hyquip Technologies clarifying their relationship as a sister concern under the same management.
At this stage, feeling that the required documentation was finally on hand, the Chief Secretary asked the finance department to reassess the papers and give its advice.
Ramesh Negi, Commissioner and Secretary, Finance, however, sent another thunderbolt instead.
He wrote a signed note dated 10th September 2007 in which he rubbished the claims of an agreement between Hyquip Projects and IBR Canada. He dismissed the confidentiality agreement dated 4.11.2004 which was being produced now as too general in nature and having nothing to do with Sonsoddo. He asked why this agreement was not produced earlier (obviously implying the agreement was post-dated). He noted that the so-called confidentiality agreement (between a foreign company based in Canada and an Indian company) was on plain paper without any registration authentication. It was not on stamped paper and the copy was not even notarized as a certified copy.
Negi also raised serious questions about how the company qualified in the technical bid when no agreement was produced at that time and he asked for legal opinion.
About the agreement produced between Hyquip Projects and Hyquip Technologies, he found this was also not registered and neither had it been produced earlier even though it was dated 1.9.2005. Further, the finance secretary noted that the finance position of IBR Canada downloaded from the internet showed the company in losses in 2004 and 2005. He also raised a query about the suitability of the IBR technology to Indian conditions.
On seeing the note, on 11th September, the Chief Secretary recorded what appeared to be the death knell of the project. He wrote:
“In view of the objections raised by the Finance Department on pages 31/N and 23/N as well as the irregularities pointed out by the Vigilance Department at page 17/N, it appears that we have no other option but to scrap the current tender and terminate the work being done by M/s Hyquip Projects Ltd. Among the irregularities pointed out by the Vigilance Department, the major ones are the purchase of tender form in a name other than M/s. Hyquip Projects Ltd as well as no documentary proof of a joint venture with the company providing the technology. These aspects have now been fully examined by the Finance Department who have found the documents given in support as un-acceptable. It was earlier felt that if this documentation is proper, then we could consider taking the project forward as a pilot project. However, now that these conditions are not met and in view of the clear objections by the Finance and Vigilance Departments, we may scrap the project and go in for fresh tenders.”
On 30th November, 2007, the finance secretary concurred with the statement of the Chief Secretary. The Chief Minister himself put up a note which reads: “As discussed with the Min. U.D, Secretary Finance and CS, the file should be reexamined by secretary vigilance.” As a result, the file was resubmitted to Vigilance.
A note was again put up detailing the entire history of the project. After seeing this, the secretary (vigilance) V.K. Jha on 10th January 2008 put up a note. He indicated the clarifications received from the Secretary (U.D.) were scrutinized and not found tenable. He reiterated the comments made by the Department earlier and concluded that it would be appropriate to scrap the tender.
Now the case took an entirely bizarre turn. The following day, the Chief Minister referred the matter to the Advocate General!
Note the peculiar circumstances of the move. The entire top brass of the government system says no, cancel, go for fresh tender. So the government goes all the way out to get an approval now from a source outside the government: the office of the advocate-general. What does he do? He writes up a six page note. The note is the longest in the file!
The Advocate General practically overrules all the objections. He concludes by urging that the agreement with Hyquip has to be executed to avoid further complications. That in any case, the “four-member committee” should be appointed in place of the earlier consultant and that payments should be released to the contractor only after certification by the four-member committee. This note is dated 15.1.2008.
On 16th January, a draft note is prepared for circulation in the cabinet. The Finance Secretary again intervenes to say that the cabinet note may please be revised to reflect “the true and complete picture”. On 30th January, the Chief Secretary observes that there are “substantial variations between this note and the earlier one vetted by the Finance Department.” Mr Uddipta Ray, secretary, finance, puts on record that neither of the 2 draft cabinet notes has been vetted by the Finance Department. He insists that the first cabinet note reflected the true and complete picture of the entire sequence of events in respect of the project leading to the submission of the matter to the cabinet for a decision, whereas the second cabinet note was “a truncated effort with vital objections from the Finance and Vigilance Department not projected.” He noted that the cabinet must know all the facts and even if the objections raised by the Vigilance Department had been adequately responded to, there was no harm in incorporating such responses in the cabinet note.
J.P. Singh concurred with the Finance Secretary. Finally a new draft was prepared and submitted for the cabinet meeting on 6th of February, 2008. The new draft, however, was neither vetted by the Finance Department nor Vigilance.
The cabinet note lists the irregularities noted earlier by the Vigilance Department but says that these objections were responded to by GSUDA. The note of the Finance Department for termination of the existing contract is also duly recorded. The Advocate General’s note is mentioned.
The Cabinet, at its meeting held on 6th February, finally decided to ignore the objections of the Finance Department and Vigilance and to follow the advice of the Advocate General. Perhaps, for the first time in the history of such approvals of the cabinet, a project came to be approved despite staunch objections by three of the topmost functionaries of the Goa Government. It is quite clear that all the three top officials demanded or recommended cancellation of the project. Also, for the first time, the services of the Advocate General were recruited to legitimise a decision that Government was keen to take for extraneous reasons.
The people of Goa ought to be thankful that at the highest level of Government there are still officers who will call a spade a spade. The government system is set up to deal with such eventualities. In the Sonsoddo matter, the Government system worked fairly efficiently and effectively till the end of January, 2008. After that, the political powers that be derailed the entire procedure installed, ignored the warnings of the consultants and top officers and decided to support Hyquip Projects – a corrupt deal designed not to treat garbage but to generate more filth.
A few months after the Cabinet approval, Hyquip Projects produced an additional bill for Rs.76 lakhs for work which it claims it had carried out at Sonsoddo. This was only in respect of the current work at the site and obviously not in respect of the seven items for which the earlier bill of Rs. 3.3 crores had been submitted. In the meanwhile, the waste mountain at Sonsoddo is already becoming a heritage site, like the one at Curca.
It is only now that the Government has finally come to concede that the Hyquip proposal might have been a complete fraud. For this, however, it has only itself to blame as adequate warning signs had been raised by its top bureaucrats which it finally decided to ignore.
So now we all know why Sonsoddo stinks. Expect more filmy stuff in future. Ponda project has been estimated at Rs.3.4 crores. And there are still another 11 municipal councils to finance in this way. All our money will go, our garbage will remain. Not even God can help Goa if things go on in this manner.
Claude Alvares is Director of the Goa Foundation.