Srinivas Rao, Chief Planning Officer of the zilla panchayat, said on Saturday that importance was being given to implementation of green protocols in Udupi district. He was chairing a workshop-cum-consultative meeting on the disposal of wet and dry waste organised by the ZP and the Swachh Bharat Mission, here.
Mr. Rao said that the protocols were a set of rules which will be implemented during government functions and programmes from the zilla panchayat down to the gram panchayat levels to reduce garbage in the district in phases. They would be introduced in schools also.
“We want to move towards Swachh Udupi, Swasthya Udupi (Clean Udupi, Healthy Udupi),” he said.
The idea is to gradually do away with the use of plastic and paper cups and plates, and plastic water bottles, during government functions and meetings. One way to lessen garbage is to reduce its production on a daily basis.
Hence the district administration had decided to set aside Thursday as ‘Thinking Thursday’ to chalk out programmes to reduce garbage in all the three taluks. Garbage disposal had to be done in a scientific manner.
Since this work could not be done by the government departments alone, youth organisations had been roped in to take this message to the village-level.
Already, Udupi district had been declared as open-defecation free district, Mr. Rao said.
Raghunath, officer, Swachh Bharat Mission, said that the government was providing ₹20 lakh per gram panchayat for scientific disposal of waste provided a detailed project report was submitted.
Already this amount had been provided to five gram panchayats – Belman, Varamballi, Eedu, Maravanthe and Perdoor – in the district.
Nearly 50% of waste could be reduced if the use of plastic carry bags was stopped, and cloth and jute bags were introduced instead.
Segregation of waste at source goes a long way in scientific disposal of waste, Mr. Raghunath said.
