Agartala, : Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb indicated that his government is considering the imposition of a fine on the citizens for littering, unscientific disposal of waste and urination in open space soon to ensure compliance of the direction of National Green Tribunal (NGT) regarding waste management.
While addressing the inauguration of a weeklong training program of Solid and Liquid Waste Management here Chief Minister reiterated that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched most ambitious mission Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) well before the direction of NGT came and citizens of the country have joined hand in the crusade to make India clean.
“Tripura has also marked a significant development in the implementation of SBA and by this time Udaipur and Sonamura of the state have been awarded for cleanliness at the national level. The cleanliness movement of Prime Minister has already been reached to the grassroots level but to achieve cent per cent success, all of use to join hand in mission mode,” Deb stated.
He said besides, seeking wholehearted public participation in waste management program, the state government has undertaken measures for strengthening institutional mechanism. The door to door collection of waste and emphasis has been given on the segregation of solid waste at the source and progress has been made on the processing of waste and monetizing it, Deb said.
“Despite mass awareness and repeated appeals from a different level, the habit of littering of waste including plastic items in drains and water bodies remained as a major problem for Agartala. The habit of open urination is still a practice among a section of the citizens, which is not only creating a problem for waterlogging and inundation in the city, also appeared as shame for civilization. We shall be going to impose fine on such activities to make Tripura green,” Deb pointed out.
As many as 500 Master Trainers including more than 200 women from 49 wards of Agartala Municipal Corporation, 20 Municipal Councils and Nagar Panchayats, representatives from 24 model villages of the state and BSF Jawans have participated in the training who would be the main brigade of the government to carry out the whole task of waste management.
The problem of waste management could not pick up well in Agartala Municipal Council (AMC) and other urban areas due to the lackadaisical attitude of the elected bodies. Allegedly, even after specific directions from the state government, urban local bodies have been continuously violating NGT directives.
Sources in the state government stated as per NGT direction, all the states of the country were supposed to comply the solid waste management rule 2016 by separating the solid waste at source, segregation and safe disposal and to recycle or processed the waste to turn them wealth by March this year. But Tripura was utterly failed to comply with the directions and finally sought time till June to do it.
Mr Deb issued warning to the city administration to go by rule for solid waste management. Accordingly, AMC has started announcement for the city dwellers stating, if anyone found mixing degradable and non-degradable household waste or littering in the drain or elsewhere they will be panelized.
The Self Help Group (SHG) members were engaged for a door to door collection of waste while state government advised urban local bodies to outsource waste collection from markets and hotels and also to device strategies to monetise the waste.
The experts suggested 12 hourly door to door collection of solid waste through women SHG members along with source segregation and generation of money from all the segregated components of recyclable (non-bio-degradable) and non-recyclable (biodegradable) garbage so as to make the project financially viable and practically implementable.
“The government is also contemplating to impose extended producers’ responsibility clause to manage the menace of plastic waste. Besides, stopping the use of poly bags, single-use plastic like wrappers and plastic packets of different brands and producers became the biggest challenge and now government mulls to implement the provision for compelling the producers of such waste to collect it from the state,” said a senior government official.
The NGOs working in the environmental field has urged the government to stop using bottled water in government offices and meetings, plastic cups, plates and glasses to enforce the legal stand on the issue.
UNI.
