Garbage piles at Chandmari dumping ground

Nirmal Bharat Abhijan (clean India movement), a central government scheme to clean up rural India, has failed to take off in Howrah, particularly in the gram panchayats located in the fringe areas of Howrah town. With an unprecedented population explosion in the villages of Howrah, management of solid waste is turning out to be a major challenge. The volume of garbage is increasing menacingly and finding a trenching ground for dumping garbage is turning out to be a major headache for the panchayat pradhans. Let alone a dumping ground, the panchayats are now finding it difficult to locate land for setting up recycling plants in their panchayat areas.

Crores of rupees meant for setting up solid and liquid waste management is lying unused in the financial year 2012-13 as most of the gram panchayats have failed to submit project plans. “The gram panchayats located in the fringe areas of Howrah town are thickly populated. But not a single panchayat has its own trenching ground for dumping garbage. In such a situation, the only option is to establish recycling plants for better garbage management,” said Tapan Chakraborty, district co-ordinator, Nirmal Bharat Abhijan project.

Chakraborty laid particular stress on setting up recycling plants because that provided the only permanent solution to the problem of garbage disposal. “Even if trenching grounds were found, it would only be a temporary solution to the problem for a few years. Because with the growth of population, the trenching ground will soon reach a saturation point and another site will have to be found. So the best option is to recycle garbage,” Chakraborty said.

(Left) a pond being filled up with garbage at Nischinda gram panchayat and (right) garbage lies along the road at Bankra. Pictures by Gopal Senapati

According to Nirmal Bharat Abhijan project, each gram panchayat will get Rs 20 lakh if they build a recycling plant and turn the garbage into bio-fertilisers. The gram panchayats that need recycling projects immediately are Domjur, Makardaha-I, Chamrail, Jagadishpur, Andul, Mashila, Salap, Jhorhaat, Bankra, Mohiari-I&II, Durgapur-Abhaynagar, Nischinda, Sapuipara-Basukathi, Bally and others.

The garbage in these panchayat areas are dumped in waterbodies located on national highways, state highways, near the rail tracks or in the sewage canals. Filling up of water bodies disturbs the ecological balance in the area and dumping of garbage in the sewage canals causes dirty water to flow back in the residential areas as most of the canals get clogged. “We need at least 20 cottahs of land for setting up a recycling plant considering the volume of garbage generated in my panchayat area every day. The price of land per cottah in my area is Rs 5 lakh. We need to spend Rs 1 crore for the land alone. Unless the government buys the land for us how can we afford to set up a recycling plant?” asked Sushil Naskar, pradhan, Nischinda gram panchayat.

Garbage piles at Chandmari dumping ground

In some gram panchayats, land owners refuse to sell their land for the purpose. “Not only the land owners, residents near the land also protest when they hear that a recycling plant will come up near their house. They are not ready to bear the foul smell of garbage,” said a member of Durgapur-Abhaynagar gram panchayat.

Nischinda, Sapuipara-Basukathi and Bally gram panchayats dump their garbage on Chandmari trenching ground owned by the Bally Municipality. “But of late the Bally civic body has told us not to dump garbage in their area,” said Naskar.

Durgapur-Abhaynagar-I and Durgapur-Abhaynagar-II panchayats have been dumping their garbage on a big waterbody located on the approach road to NH2. The waterbody has almost filled up with garbage. “We protested when a vast stretch of waterbody was filled up by promoters near NH2 and managed to stop them. But now we are watching helplessly when the local panchayats themselves are filling a waterbody,” said Tapas Roy, a resident of Saheb Bagan under Durgapur-Abhaynagar gram panchayat.

“I know it is wrong to fill a waterbody by dumping garbage in it but we are also helpless. We do not have any alternative place for dumping garbage.

However, we are on the lookout for a plot to set up a recycling plant within our panchayat area,” said Aparna Sen, pradhan, Durgapur-Abhaynagar gram panchayat. Senior officers of horticulture department, however, think, the gram panchayats should set up recycling plants immediately for better management of garbage and simultaneously increase productivity of vegetables and horticulture products.

Organic garbage like skins of vegetables, fruits, left-over food is separated from inorganic waste like plastic bags, pieces of metal and other things. The organic garbage is kept in concrete tanks and earthworms in the tanks turn the garbage into organic fertilisers. “The earthworms feed on the organic garbage and their refuse makes for good organic fertiliser. It helps in growing organic vegetables, fruit and flowers. This organic fertiliser can be sold to the farmers at affordable rates,” said Kushadhaj Bag, a horticulture officer.