Waste Management Projects mooted for 8 rural clusters in North and West Sikkim

GANGTOK, 02 May [IPR]: In order to take up management of solid-liquid waste in rural areas on “high priority”, a meeting was convened at the RM&DD conference Hall on Saturday under the chairmanship of the Secretary, RM&DD, AK Ganeriwala.
The meeting was attended by Chief Engineer, Additional District Collector - Development (North & West districts), Deputy Secretary (Sanitation), BDOs concerned and Panchayat Presidents and Panchayat Secretaries of the eight rural towns/ cluster villages under consideration for initiating Waste Management Projects in the current financial year. Representatives from Tourism & Civil Aviation Department and the Sikkim Hotels & Restaurants Association also attended the meeting.

The main objective of the meeting was to provide a forum for the participation of the stakeholders to develop a strategic Plan of Action for initiating area-specific Solid Liquid Waste Management (SLWM) activities as to achieve a zero waste society with zero disposal and discharge by adopting reducing, reusing and recycling the waste material in total. The RM&DD aims to provide a garbage collection vehicle and a compost-cum collection centre/shed for each of these targeted rural clusters.
To give the participants an insight into the current Solid Waste Systems already in place in Sikkim, power point presentations were made by Nima Tashi of Khangchendzonga Conservation Committee, Satyen Pradhan, BDO Yangang and representative of Maple Orgtech that propagates zero waste through Effective Microorganisms (EM) solution.
The Secretary said that a fully decentralised approach would be adopted, whereby the GPU Panchayats shall run the project by evolving institutional mechanisms for collection and disposal of bio-degradable and non-biodegradable waste separately under the guidance of the BDO concerned.
The Panchayats were instructed to immediately identify suitable land for the construction of SLWM centre, comprising a compost centre, store, toilet facility etc.
The Secretary further directed that the Panchayats must not leave any stone unturned in their Solid Waste initiative by supplementing it with grants from the 13th Finance Commission, NGP Award money and other grants etc. as Sikkim being a major tourist destination, only a clean environment in the villages would give a fillip to the Nirmal Rajya status of the state.
He further commended the efforts of some of the Panchayats namely, Gerethang, Mellidara, Yangang, Namthang, who had already made considerable progress in this direction. The Panchayat of Chungthang opined that this was an opportune time to launch such a project as in the past, people were only groping in the dark about such measures, however now there were several technological options to be opted for.