Garbage is not a waste but a resource: C Srinivasan

Correspondent
Silchar, March 26: People should take the initiative and be responsible for keeping their city clean. One should not sit idle by giving responsibility to the government only. Garbage is not a waste but a resource. People entertain a misconception that garbage is a waste which cannot be used any further and thus should be dumped. In fact, waste products and unwanted materials can be utilized in many ways,” said guest speaker C Srinivasan, project director, Indian Green Service (IGS), Vellore, Tamil du, at the iugural ceremony of the two day workshop on Solid and Liquid Resource Magement (SLRM) at the packed auditorium of District Library here today.
 The workshop titled ‘Convert Garbage to Gold’ has been jointly organized by the District Disaster Magement Authority (DDMA) and Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department of Cachar, under the Clean Silchar Initiative – My City My Responsibility. Addressing the huge gathering, C Srinivasan further said that most of the municipality boards clean the city off and dump it at a trenching ground which in turn swells into hill of garbage, leading to a host of diseases. He said, “SLRM will take the responsibility of collecting these waste products from each house twice a day and segregated it into different categories. As a result of this segregation, these waste products will not end up buried in the ground. It takes 12 hours for the leftovers to decompose and 24 hours to stink. This attracts flies which spreads deadly diseases. The garbage which is thrown comes back to us in one way or the other.”
 “In this workshop, we will learn how to lessen the amount of garbage from our houses and roads. The population of Silchar is 1 lakh and there are 20000 families and 3000 shops in the municipal urban area. We need 666 women working in different Self Help Groups (SHGs) who will collect the waste products from door to door twice on daily basis. It will not only create employment opportunities but also keep the city clean,” Srinivasan added to say. He pointed out that there are innumerable advertisements on sanitary pkins and diapers which are telecast on the television. “Strangely enough, nobody cares to instruct where and how to throw sanitary pkins and diapers. It is unhealthy and insanitary to throw these things hither and thither,” said Srinivasan.
 The telecasting of Aamir Khan’s Satyamev Jayate featuring C Srinivasan set the stage on fire and heralded revolutiory changes in many parts of the country. He appeared on the ‘Don’t Waste Your Garbage’ episode and spoke at length about the ‘Vellore model’ of solid waste magement which will be of benefit to both men and animals. His telephone has been ringing since then. “We are privileged to have him amongst us. He was scheduled to come in the month of October, 2017. The mindset of the people has undergone sea changes. Now people hesitate to throw anything on the ground and search for a dustbin instead,” said S Viswathan, IAS, Deputy Commissioner cum Chairman DDMA of Cachar, while delivering the key-note address.
 The DC added to say that there was initial resistance and refusal from people regarding the door to door collection by the SMB workers which started in December 2016. “However, they filly agreed. The number of garbage points has been reduced to 25 to 30 from 150. There should not be any such points in the city. Garbage cannot be avoided but can be utilized. Per day 250 grams of waste products are dumped into dustbins.  SLRM will further reduce it since C Srinivasan will show how to segregate these products at home itself before being given to the collectors, he added to say.
 Niharendra rayan Thakur, chairperson, Silchar Municipal Board, said, “Since our Board came into being on April 2, 2015, we have been requesting the authorities concerned to free the trenching ground at Meherpur from the grip of illegal entities and unscrupulous persons. The trenching ground is virtually in the grip of encroachers. The 3 NGOs have been collecting wastes from each and every house regularly, but lack of ground area has become a matter of concern for us.” He further said that at present there are no funds to implement scientific and technical modes and machines to turn garbage into gold. “We have requested the Union Government and the authorities concerned to sanction an amount of Rs.20 crores,” added the chairperson.
 Along with the episode of Satyamev Jayate featuring C Srinivasan, a number of educative videos and documentaries were screened at the auditorium in the technical session. These videos featured the pathetic picture of garbage sites across various cities of the country. Among others present at the iugural ceremony included Rajib Roy, ACS, Additiol Deputy Commissioner (ADC) cum chief executive officer, DDMA, Cachar, J R Lalsim, ADC Cachar and chairperson of Lakhipur Municipal Board, N J Choudhury, executive engineer, PHE, Div – I, Rathindra Dey, executive engineer, PHE, Div – II, Kuldeep Hazarika, circle officer, Silchar Sadar, Pradip Kumar Gupta, circle officer, Lakhipur and assistant commissioners Basabi Thakuriya and Debojyoti Gogoi.