Swachh Bharat Abhiyan - Letter to Hon'ble Prime Minister of India

To
Hon'ble Prime Minister of India,
New Delhi
India

From
A Common Man

Subject : Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 

Dear Modi Ji,

                    First of all, thanks to you on behalf of every responsible and committed citizen of India on your initiatives including "Make in India",  "Swachh Bharat Abhiyan" to name a few. Being an young Indian we are behind people's Leader to support any initiative that would benefit and better the life of a common man. 

             

                    It would inspire people to join this campaign when celebrities they look after are into this. I would like to share few of my observations, so as a team we should arrive at the best possible solution to realize this dream by the year 2019 - 150th Anniversary of Gandhiji. 

                    In Coimbatore, I have participated in many city cleaning drive and organised similar drive from 2009. I could see no change in people's attitude in larger scale. Sometimes I felt, only since we clean, there exists a group of people who throw wastes thinking someone will clean.  Through this "Clean India" Drive we should not just clean, but make people awareness of the importance of staying clean, provide proper infrastructure to people to dispose the waste, proper mechanism to recycle and reuse the waste for the authorities. All these are possible only from Government side as lot of financial investment to be made for disposal, segregation, recycling and legal restrictions to be kept in place.

Challenge ahead of us: 

(Challenges listed here are what is faced throughout India. Images are only for educational purpose. It does not limit only to that place or locality)

No Proper Infrastructure In-place for Waste Collection and Segregation

The current system in place is where a municipal employee comes door-to-door collecting wastes. The small collection boxes are differentiated with two colors Red and Green. I believe the red for "Non Degradable Waste" and Green for "Degradable Wastes".

Even when we segregate the wastes and drop them separately. The final destination these wastes reaches is the massive dustbins placed either at the corner of the streets (if it is placed) or waste mountains. If it is the massive dustbins, the unknown truth to many is, only we have text written outside. There is no actual partition inside the bins.

Recently, I was in Germany, just like to share the waste collection methodology followed there only for information purpose, not to compare meaning anything else. 

Every house in Germany will have multicoloured dustbins where the wastes are segregated during the use by house-holds. Once in a week or two weeks, the collection vehicle will come and collect these wastes at every house. If they find that waste are not segregated properly then there is a chance that they may not collect the same or collect it with a penalty. We can dump the waste in Road side or any other place.

I don't see any difficulty in implementing similar method here. We already have a similar mechanism, but modification are needed after a thorough study.

Below picture shows dustbins placed in front of school (top and bottom right corner images), despite that wastes are dumped aside school (main image). Also no dustbin in-front of Temple, which is completely a residential area.

Even I noticed many dustbins are filled up completely, but may be since the corporation or municipality does not empty them on-time, leading people dumped the waste outside or burn the wastes by firing them inside the bin.

Handling of Bio-Medical Wastes and E-Wastes

Apart the plastics and food wastes scattered on the road side. We were able to recover some Medical wastes like used injections, sanitary napkin, etc. and E-Waste like used battery, cell, bulbs, copper wires.

Here it is the duty of the Medical Institutions and regulations from the local authorities only can make the handling better. Though we have Bio-Medical Waste Rules - 1998 - 
http://www.mppcb.nic.in/bio-medical_waste.htm,  still some gaps are to be filled.

"Turning waste management into resource management" is possible in India. Germany and other European countries consider "Waste as a source of raw materials.". We can try to recycle the food waste at home.

Two methods from http://england.lovefoodhatewaste.com/node/6043 website might help people interested :

• The first, In-vessel composting, involves mixing food waste with garden waste, shredding it and composting it in a tunnel or container for around two to four weeks. Temperatures of up to 70 degrees C speed up the process and kill any harmful microbes. It is then left for a further 1-3 months with regular turning and checks to ensure quality, before going on to be used as soil conditioner.
• The second method, Anaerobic Digestion, uses micro-organisms called 'methanogens' to break down fyood waste, animal manures and energy crops in the absence of oxygen, inside an enclosed tank. As it breaks down, it gives off 'bio-gas' that is collected and used to generate electricity, heat or transport fuels. It also creates biofertiliser, which can be used in farming and land regeneration.

Stop Plastic Bags - Use Paper Bags

Government should take necessary actions to ban the usage of plastics and we citizens should stand by stop using Plastics Bags. We can use paper bags or cloth bags whenever we go out for shopping.


Proper Sanitation Facility 

I dont say we do not have proper sanitation facility. Of Course we do have world class sanitation facility, but do we have in all places.??  There are many areas where sanitation is involved. Talking only about "Toilet or WashRoom" facility, First - many times during travel, when looking for a Restroom, it is very difficult to find one.Secondly even if we do find one, how clean is it for using. 

I am travelling between Mettupalayam and Coimbatore almost every day. I cannot name even a single place on the Main Road where I can find a Restroom. For instance if we take Gandhipuram Bus stand, I remember we have a Free toilet and almost adjacent block we have Pay and use Toilets.

The so called "Free Toilet" at many places are always Free. "Pay and use Toilets" charge Rs.5 to Rs.10, for the bad to very bad service they offer. 

What would someone do if they dont find a proper Restroom or Restroom ?

They find Nature owned Restroom - Tree. Even then, this Restroom is very Men Only, as this is completely air-conditioned. 

It is the duty of the local authorities to take necessary steps to not just plan and construct Toilets at Regular intervals and important places, but also to maintain them clean and hygienic 

The challenges are not limited to the above as you know, but the ones which I have experienced in the Democratic India.

Till 2019, let us "Clean India", after which we should "Keep India Clean"

Jai Hind.

Thanking you,

Ramaguru Radhakrishnan

Challenges reused from my previous article : http://ramaguru.blogspot.com/2014/06/clean-city.html
 

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Campaign Clean India) is a national level campaign by the Government of India, officially launched on 2 October 2014 at Rajghat, New Delhi, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself wielded broom and cleaned a road.