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The Agartala Municipal Council (AMC) has been trying and initiating innovative methods to sort out the problem though with no plausible gains achieved. The criticalities are simply doubling themselves each year. The city is now producing a huge amount of garbage daily which demands speedy removal facilities by the AMC. Sufficient funds have allocated but the progress is not as it was anticipated anyway. Agartala Municipal council has been active since 1871, even before the independence and look at Agartala today. 150 years of AMC service towards the capital dwellers have just bagged enough garbage dumps to show up at every corner of the streets.
In such a juncture of time, a group of children are working continuously in the alleys of Agartala; in each and every drain, nalla and garbage lump, as silently as anyone could be. You can see packs of rag worn children collecting bottles from the drains, some loading them onto rickshaws and some painfully dragging them in torn sacks. This is a complete genre of unheard and untold community. More than 100 such social workers are rendering their never-tiring labour for the betterment of the people with almost no due rewards paid.
Talking to these eluded, helpless children, some astounding stories came up. Abul Hussain, while talking to the Times correspondent, said, “I am an orphan. I did not see my parents in my life. Bottle collecting is my profession”.
The child had been most probably from neighboring Bangladesh in his childhood. Since then, Abdul has known bottles and Re. 1 or 50 paise per bottle commission to lead his daily bread and butter. It may appear queer but this is the real picture of practical Agartala city now a days. The 7 years old boy daily collect at least 40-45 bottles from the scattered drains of city Agartala and sell them at Maharajganj Bazaar. Abdul is a part of 8-member group of his age. The group collects around 300-400 bottles daily, said Abdul. It may be mentioned here that the well paid garbage vans and NGOs affiliated to the AMC can’t reach a count near to this in a week. One can clearly understand what a good job they are performing for their survival!
Bottles thrown in the drains often block the free-flow of water and the drainage system gets stagnant causing obnoxious environment. Truly, these children are going a great job unknowingly and helping Agartala city clean to a great extent.
Most of these children live in slum areas on the banks of River Howrah along the Battala area or nearby hamlets. Though these children manage to procure a well enough income to lead their lives, a large part of the cash is spent on taking drugs. Anyway, drugs don’t signify any terribly expensive narcotics here. Cheap and easily available Dendrite tubes or ganja cigarettes serve it best to the teens.
Abdul also informed that the other groups are doing the same in this cultured city. Clashes, tortures and scuffling take place among these groups whose lives remain in utmost uncertainty. Among the groups, a few girls also contribute for earning their livelihood. Samina, Chinnni, some of the tiniest girls of Abdul’s group have been brought up by other members. Samina is, however, is only two and half years old and too small to collect bottles from the drains.
You watch movies with concocted ‘reality’ ideas in movie halls or stories of harsh truth of far away slums in city lives and ponder about the perilous of children as in Slumdog Millionaire when such children are rambling right along your nose. Stunning! Isn’t it?
By
Mithun Debnath |