Aligarh :
The year will end on a “clean” note for 28-year-old Abhishek Kumar Sharma, a research student of environment at Kanpur University, who began a journey on bicycle in November 2014 to endorse Prime Minister Modi’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Sharma completed the trip on December 22 and has staggering numbers and remarkable insights to talk about.
Sharma covered 20,000 km across 25 states, met chief ministers of 18 (Kerala was the best experience as CM Chandy was readily available), interacted with 402 district magistrates and addressed lakhs of students in over 200 lectures on environment and cleanliness.
Sharma submitted his findings with the Union urban development ministry on ‘How to Make Waste our Wealth’. The first seven days were tough: starting from Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, he battled cold in December, January and faced extreme heat in May-June in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
In Sharma’s opinion, with sensible solid waste management one can make wealth out of waste. “Mysore is the cleanest city. They have a self-sustainable model of waste management wherein they segregate waste as organic, inorganic, and recyclable. Kachra or junk goes to kabadiwallahs, organic waste is used for bio-fertilizers. I think South India is cleaner than North India,” he said.
Also, on his journey around India he found villages cleaner than cities. “This means educated people litter their surroundings expecting someone to pick it up,” he said. A village in Punjab, which has the same sarpanch for the past 15 years, is mentioned by him because the sarpanch invented interesting ways to keep his surroundings clean and healthy. “He made a biogas plant for all to use free of cost,” Sharma said.
The Smart Cities plan can only be successful if surroundings are clean and waste is managed effectively. “Municipal corporations should go beyond dumping waste – from one site to another, honestly that is all they do. To be able to make wealth out of waste they should segregate waste as organic, inorganic, recyclable and so on and put them to use accordingly.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Agra / by Eram Agha, TNN / December 28th, 2015