“There is also the question of fairness. Why should one village be forced to absorb the waste of the entire state? Bardez residents did not sign up to become Goa’s custodians of garbage. Yet instead of developing smaller, decentralised facilities across Goa, the government has taken the lazy way out by overloading one plant. This is not planning. It is abdication. It is using Saligao as a safety valve for the failures of others. That is not waste management. It is the exploitation of a village that has been too accommodating for too long.
The handling of the Comunidade land issue only deepens suspicion. Locals allege that while the Gaunkars opposed handing over more land, the managing committee refused to pass a resolution against it.”
Saligao is not Goa’s garbage dump. Yet the way the state has handled its waste management, is exactly what Saligao is being reduced to. When the garbage treatment plant was first set up in the village, it was meant to cater to the coastal belt of Bardez.
A modest facility, built to handle around 100 tonnes of waste, it was sold as a solution that would be efficient and localised. But like most government promises, that purpose shifted quickly.
Today the plant handles more than twice its original capacity, taking in garbage from places far beyond Bardez, and now the Goa Waste Management Corporation wants to expand the buffer zone by acquiring more land. For the people of Saligao, this is not an act of environmental safety. It is a backdoor attempt to extend the plant’s reach, swallow up more land, and make their home the state’s dumping ground.
The government can insist that the buffer zone is only about compliance and safety, but that claim rings hollow. Why should anyone believe them when every expansion so far has been justified in exactly the same manner, only to end up raising the plant’s capacity? Residents already live with the unbearable stench that seeps into their homes.
They already bear the health and social costs of a plant that was never meant to grow so big. They see trucks bringing in waste from distant parts of Goa, even from talukas that should be managing their own garbage. They have little reason to trust vague assurances about limits. The people of Saligao are right to fear that “buffer zone” is simply another phrase for more land, more garbage, and more broken promises.
There is also the question of fairness. Why should one village be forced to absorb the waste of the entire state? Bardez residents did not sign up to become Goa’s custodians of garbage. Yet instead of developing smaller, decentralised facilities across Goa, the government has taken the lazy way out by overloading one plant. This is not planning. It is abdication. It is using Saligao as a safety valve for the failures of others. That is not waste management. It is the exploitation of a village that has been too accommodating for too long.
The handling of the Comunidade land issue only deepens suspicion. Locals allege that while the Gaunkars opposed handing over more land, the managing committee refused to pass a resolution against it. This reeks of pressure and manoeuvring. When the panchayat and political leaders have already raised objections, why is the government still pushing? The answer is obvious: it has no intention of listening. Instead, it would rather steamroll opposition, secure land first, and then expand later under the pretext of necessity.
Saligao has been patient. It has borne the brunt of a plant that has grown far beyond its original mandate. But patience is not an endless resource. When residents say enough is enough, they are defending not just their land but also the principle that no village should be turned into a garbage dump for the rest of Goa. What is happening in Saligao today is a warning for every other village tomorrow. If this model of centralising garbage in one place continues, more villages will be sacrificed in the same way, and Goa’s environment will suffer even more deeply.
The truth is simple. Garbage is everyone’s problem. Every village, every town, every city has to deal with its own waste responsibly. Saligao cannot carry the burden for all. If the state wants to take its waste management seriously, it must invest in systems that spread responsibility, not dump it on a single village. Until then, every attempt to dress up land acquisition as safety will be rightly resisted as a lie. Saligao is not Goa’s garbage dump, and the people are right to remind the government of that, loudly and clearly.
