HC issues notice MMC, Fomento Green on Sonsodo dump PIL

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Panaji: The division bench of the Bombay High Court at Goa today issued notice to the Margao Municipal Council (MMC), Fomento Green, Goa Waste Management Corporation (GWMC) on a public interest litigation for removal of the Sonsodo municipal waste dump.

Petitioners are Citizens for Sonsodo and the Goa Foundation.

During the hearing, Goa Foundation, brought to the notice of the Court that despite the Pollution Control Board’s directions, the MMC was still continuing to dump unsegregated waste on the existing dump, the Court ordered the matter be placed on Board next Wednesday.

The petitioners have pleaded for permanent removal of the Sonsodo garbage waste dump which poses a grave threat to the health and the environment of citizens in the vicinity of the site.

As an interim relief, the petitioners have requested Court to restrain the respondents from dumping any further unsegregated or segregated waste at the Sonsodo garbage dump site.

And to direct MMC to produce a plan, with bar chart, for complete evacuation of the dump prior to the 2020 monsoon;

It has also pleaded to restrain the council from granting any new licence for construction within its jurisdiction till the removal of the dump.

The petitioner alleged that as result of mismanagement by Respondents the dump caught a torrential fire which burned from May 27 to June 7, 2019 causing immense air pollution.

Despite solemn undertakings made before this court and the obvious dangers that the dump poses, the respondents have once again resumed – without shame and without accountability – the dumping of mixed waste on the hazardous dumpsite.

Such dumping is in open violation and contempt of the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Rules, 2016, directions issued  by the Pollution Control Board and this Court’s orders.

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