Bangladeshi Immigrants and Swachchh Bharat

A few days ago we had a meeting of the local Residents' Welfare Association.  One member observed that an order has been promulgated by the government for penalizing burning of garbage as a mode of disposal.  Of course, nobody knew of any initiatives for improvements in the current pathetic state of garbage collection and disposal to supplement this notification.  In the absence of such improvements, the notification looks like just cynical buck passing.

At our place garbage is not collected by the corporation directly but by a private agency called "Chamacham Lucknow."  I think most other cities too have similar arrangements.  Chamacham fellows are supposed to take all the garbage to the nearest designated garbage dump from where corporation collects it, though not on a daily basis. The Chamacham people do take the household garbage away once in two days.  However, the fallen leaves, plant trimmings from houses as also the neighborhood park are bulky and Chamacham workers refuse to cart it away.  Instead they collect it in a heap, leave it to dry and then set fire to it.  Often this burning mass also includes bits of plastic and wrappings lying on the road and roadside. This is a major source of air pollution in the city.

As an aside, we all have read in the newspapers that these days the farmers too set fire to the dry plant stalk remaining in the fields after harvesting. Thus burning of plant stalks in villages and garbage in cities have raised air pollution levels to a new high all around.

After the meeting I chanced to meet the local Chamacham supervisor and interviewed him briefly.  This is the picture that emerged from the interview.

He said that there are well paid municipal employees under a supervisor who are supposed to sweep the streets and take away all the swept-up garbage.  Instead they are made to work as domestic servants at bureaucrats' and politicians' homes.  Then many of them do not work themselves.  They hire another person to whom they pay a fraction of their wages.  They also pay another small fraction to their supervisor and then splurge the rest.  After all, why should they work once they have become a government employee: never mind if it is just the LSG (Local Self Government!)  Chamacham people rightly thinks that compensating for such shirking by people who are extremely well paid entitles them to separate payment for sweeping the streets.

Then again, the number of garbage dumpsters has been steadily declining as nobody wants one near his house.  To be sure, it really is a big nuisance.  It will overflow before it is emptied by the autonomous employees.  Dogs and cows will be rummaging through the overflow and adding their own poop to it.  Now who wouldn't mobilize all his resources to ensure that he is as far away from such a place as possible?

Thus inadequate deployment of dumpsters and infrequent emptying of these few dumpsters force burning of garbage as the only means of disposal.

He concluded by adding a note of caution, "People resent the Bangladeshi immigrants. But it must be said that but for them our cities would have by now turned into garbage mountains."

Unless Municipal Corporations are overhauled, rid of corruption and their employees made to work, merely exhorting and goading the citizens will not get us any closer to the Swachchh Bharat of our dreams.  And if we cannot make the employees work, we may have to encourage Bangladeshi immigration, political posturing notwithstanding.

Ocean of Garbage

Voting for municipal elections is over. All candidates have promised a neat and clean ward.  Elsewhere sadhus are staging demonstrations for making Ganges clean.  Then there is a news that the municipal corporation in Lucknow has neither vacant land(fills) nor resources for disposal / processing of garbage.  Most other municipalities including those in towns along the Ganges may be no different, and the industries releasing untreated effluents will readily advance the same argument.

The news item seems to suggest that it is not a matter of attitude towards cleanliness or the work ethics in our municipal corporations that is responsible for all the squalor around us but sheer lack of physical and financial resources.  Never mind if the lack of resources is a direct fallout of the work culture.  However, lack of resources being the case, the sadhus should not be staging demonstrations but either making generous donations to the corporations / polluters from their overflowing coffers, or else directly investing in sewage / effluent treatment plants along Ganges.  We do hope that they have, at the least, made all the proper arrangements at their ashrams along the rivers and do not add to the woes of our rivers.

Coming back to the wards of the city where we have lots of greenery, one category of garbage is dry leaves and plant trimmings.  The garbage collection agencies refuse to pick them up.  Their argument is that the corporation does not allow them to dump these at the identified locations.  Unstated reasons are their unwillingness and lack of equipments too. The agencies are, of course, private ones engaged directly by the residents.  Yes, the corporation does NOT collect garbage.  There is a long list of things that the corporation does not do.  Maintenance of gardens is another item on the list.

It should be possible to use the undeveloped parks for composting the bio-waste locally.  Somehow even that is not happening.  What is happening is described below.

The disposal of this class of waste - leaves, twigs and trimmings - is done by dumping it on the roadside, allowing it to dry up and then setting it on fire.  Loose plastic bags, scraps of paper, gutka pouches littering the streets are also put in the same dump.

The favorite locations for this yagna-like fire ritual are the four corners of the parks developed by local residents themselves and used for morning walk, yoga etc.  The time for doing so is also carefully made to synchronize with the slot in the morning when the occupancy in the park is maximum.

Our sadhus may have to perform a huge yagna with corporation chiefs as Yajmaans for putting an end to this obnoxious daily fire ritual.  At the end the sadhus should, instead of demanding Dakshina, make donations to the chiefs to enable them to process all the garbage in a civilized manner.