The burning issue of piling up of garbage in the various wards in Vellore Corporation following the objection raised by the local villagers for the continued dumping of garbage in the Corporation’s compost yard in Sadupperi village on account of environmental pollution can be solved by setting up scientific solid and liquid resource management (SLRM) centres in all wards, using the available common spaces, says C. Srinivasan, Project Director, Indian Green Service (IGS), Vellore.
Forty-one-year-old Mr. Srinivasan, who is a native of Vellore has demonstrated the success of the scientific SLRM models through his pilot initiatives in the erstwhile Vellore Municipality, erstwhile Gandhinagar Town Panchayat, in gated institutions including the Christian Medical College and Hospital, the VIT University, Sri Narayani Peedam and the Collectorate in Vellore, and the Kurudampalayam panchayat in Coimbatore district. He is currently involved in providing the technical consultation for the establishment of SLRM centres and training of SLRM workers in Ambikapur Municipal Corporation in Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh and four municipalities in Assam.
Explaining to this Correspondent the SLRM concept implemented in Ambikapur at the newspaper’s office here on Thursday, Mr. Srinivasan said that each of the 17 SLRM centres in Ambikapur has been established on an area of about 3000 square feet, and they comprise separate compost beds for garden wastes (such as dry leaves), fish market wastes, vegetable wastes, secondary segregation sheds, a cattle shed and two or three bio-gas plants. The primary segregation is done at the source, while the secondary segregation is done at the SLRM centres. The tertiary segregation is done at a common centre. The SLRM project is managed by the Swach Ambikapur Mission Sahakari Samiti (a federation) comprising 62 women’s self-groups with 623 members. He has provided training to all the 623 workers and 123 supervisors. The wastes from residential areas are collected every 12 hours, from hotels and other eateries every six hours, from bulk generators (markets and commercial establishments) every four hours and from non-vegetarian hotels every three hours.
Formula
The IGS Project Director said that SLRM could be better managed by adopting the ‘30% +30% +30% + 10% formula’. Elaborating on it, he said that 30% each of the wastes generated by ‘gated premises’ (Collectorate, courts, colleges, prison, hospitals, marriage halls, etc.), ‘homogenous institutions’ (hotels, eateries, fish/chicken stalls, marriage halls, theatres and saloons), and ‘residential areas’, and the remaining 10% wastes which constituted garden wastes could be handled separately by the respective organisations, associations of traders, marriage halls, saloons, etc., and by the SHG federation in the case of the residential areas.
“We have made it a self-sustaining model by collecting a user fee of Rs. 50 per month from the households and the federation earns revenue by selling the compost, and the recyclable items. Salary ranging from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 5000 per month is paid to the workers from the revenue generated by the resources (the name that I give for wastes, since they are no longer wastes)”, he said.
About the Sadupperi issue in Vellore, Mr. Srinivasan said that the problem of mounting wastes could be solved by pushing the wastes to the four sides, and reclaiming a vast area in the centre, which could be used for the construction of multi-level compost beds. The wastes pushed to the sides can be covered by jute cloth, and vegetation grown above it, he said.
