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Agartala has no underground or piped sewerage system and as a result, wastewater from households, commercial and industrial units disposed off to storm water drains and ultimate flown down to Bangladesh through River Howrah (water source of Agartala) without any treatment. Health experts of the state confirmed that growth of gastro-entities in Agartala and it’s periphery is mainly because of water only. Chlorineisation and other common treatments of river water are not at all sufficient to kill hydrological virus and more over, the households do not have adequate filtering mechanism.
Although there are numerous storm water drains and two major rivers flowing through it, the city suffers from recurrent flood problems. During normal rainfall of about 3-4 hours, the central part of Agartala gets flooded. As per the SES, around 24 percent of the population is affected by floods. Although there is adequate fall in most parts of the city to support a gravity drainage system, some parts of the city are on low-lying land and drainage problem is more evident. The most severe problems arise when a combination of tidal conditions in the Brahmaputra basin and high rainfall cause the waters in the Howrah and Khatakhal Rivers to be higher than the city. Several pumps have been provided to lift the water out of the city during these season. However, flooding remains a problem in many parts of the city yet.
Most of the main drains are masonry-lined, but the feeder drains are earth-lined and in a poor condition with silt and vegetation choking them. Most of the drains are narrow to pass the excess water after rain. There are four pumping stations to lift water in two rivers. But the water entering Khatakhal River finds no way to get drained and remained stagnant. This caused flood. Moreover the drains are full of waste and plastics which are thrown by the city dwellers. As a result after little showers the low lying areas of the city floats in dirty waters of the drains. All time obnoxious smell comes out from these drains. City dwellers are also very responsible for the blockage in the drainage system as they throw their household waste materials and plastic bags and bottles in the drains .They don’t think that this will hamper the spontaneous flowing of water and they themselves will suffer due to the flood.
There are 37 drainage blocks which are vulnerable for floods. Provisions are made for the improvement of these drains of the said project. There has not been made any new embankment near Howrah and Khatakhal River within the Indian Territory. More over, it is rather impossible in practice to transport household liquid waste to sewerage treatment plant (STP) through separate pipeline. Since the urban growth of Agartala was not planned the plinth level of the houses are not in parallel, so it is not acceptable that entire liquid waste of the city to be carried for treatment what they mentioned in CDP.
In last five years under JNNURM urban development department has been planning to improve drainage system, solid waste management, public conveniences but haphazard unregulated growth of the city but no initiatives from the government for conservation and maintenance of the places of historic importance. At the same time, city environment became vulnerable due to poor drainage, poor infrastructure and living condition, slums and increasing levels of poverty & inadequate coverage of poverty alleviation programs. Management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is becoming a daunting task for all municipal/local bodies. On the one hand rapid urbanisation is increasing the population density of cities and towns at a very fast pace and on the other hand due to the changing consumption pattern that is package dependent every individual is generating more wastes per day than what he did say even five years back. Coupled together these two factors are increasing the MSW almost in geometrical proportion. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has a scheme under which it helps Municipal Bodies to develop Model Facilities for Demonstration of Management of MSW for implementation of Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules 2000. Agartala Municipal Council (AMC) submitted a proposal to CPCB under this scheme through Tripura State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) and after initially reevaluation of CPCB decided to support the project of estimated cost of rupees seven crore. Subsequently the CPCB has reduced the project cost to rupees three crore after complete evolution of the project as 90:10.
The total waste generation was 90 MT and it was not possible to collect and transport even 1/3rd of the waste generation to the only dumping ground. About 30 percent of the solid waste found its way into the surface drain and even the garbage collection and temporary storage and transportation from market places was not satisfactory. This situation resulted in serious environmental hazards, including frequent floods, communicable diseases and smell nuisance. It was also felt that, with present financial, technical and managerial strength, this problem could not be solved. Keeping all these in mind, a project was undertaken to promote community participation in solid waste management in the selected area.
Earlier, Centre for Social Work and Research, a registered society based in Agartala got small fund to tackle the collection, storage, transportation and disposal of solid waste in the city in 2000. It was committed to improve the environment of Agartala city in terms of solid waste management and to assign responsibility to the citizens to ensure participation in waste management and to make value added products out of waste and to ensure targeted wards as model wards under the Agartala Municipal Area. There was door-to-door collection of waste by private collectors who were provided with a pedal-tricycle. Citizen committees and community clubs were formed, who facilitated payment to the garbage collectors.
Provisions to convert organic garbage to organic manure were also made. Even school children were motivated to participate in waste management activities in their own capacities. Special emphasis was given to motivate school children, community club and citizen communities to mainstream the issues of solid waste. The proposed activities addressed the local problem of solid waste management, which in turn helped in land and water management, thereby reducing threat to the global environment. Door-to-door collection of waste took place in the targeted wards and citizens managed and paid for the services of the garbage collectors, rag pickers were trained in vermi-composting and aerobic fermentation.
The main waste generating sources are household, institutional, hospitals, marketplace and industries. The daily waste generated in Agartala is about 195 MT per day and only 45-50 percent of the total waste is collected. Officially, there are street sweeping and house-to-house waste collection by NGOs. Though the money is being paid for waste collection, the city becomes dirty again. Street sweeping is focused in densely populated areas in the city like VIP Colony, Secretariat, Rajbari, Capital Complex, Rajbhavan, GB Hospital complex and Kunjaban and Bhati-Abhoynagar areas. House-to-house waste collection is entirely entrusted to 42 NGOs are active in Agartala to cover nearly 15,000 households but they are performance also found frustrating.
By
Biswendu Bhattacharjee
(Mr. Biswendu Bhattacharya is the Tripura State Correspondent for the UNI)
[Excerpt from the output of CSE 10th Media Fellowship on JNNURM awarded to the writer]
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