It says: a) Every kilowatt of energy produced through such renewable energy sources is eligible for subsidy. A village panchayat that generates about 10 Kilowatts of electricity from its organic kitchen waste become eligible to subsidy worth Rs 4lakh.
b) Disposing of waste, particularly kitchen waste, poses a big problem everywhere.
c) Mamallapuram kitchen waste conversion is a joint effort. Chennai based NGO,‘Hand in Hand',with Vivekananda Kendra set up a bio-methanation plant, which are suitable for both urban and rural households.
d) In addition to this, the Kendra has developed a bio-gas slurry based agro-inputs package.
At Mantri's the vermicompost idea hasn't evoked much of a response, even among the core residents group that is doing care-taker work till we have a proper residents association. Those who are not enthusiastic reckon we don't have space for compost sheds. Some express concerns about foul smell the shed would generate (unfounded, according to those who have tried it).And then, we have those who say, 'vermicomposting is a good idea, but NOT in my backyard'.
Maybe, we should look beyond our Mantri compound for a solution. We could think of a community compost shed, as a joint effort by a cluster of resident communities, and the Padur panchayat. As of now, the panchayat and also the apartment complexes coming up in our immediate neighbourhood do not seem to have a sustainable waste disposal strategy. The bushes and the vast unused space behind Mantri's serve as the dumping ground for waste. From my 9th floor flat we could see, every other evening, a cloud of smoke over patches of open space behind the Mantri Synergy complex, presumably, because a waste dump is set on fire.
The Hindu write-up talks of a working model, involving Mamallapuram town panchayat, NGO and residents groups. Couldn't we think of such a model, here at Padur, before the situation gets out of hand ?
I would like to hear from interested volunteers to join me on a visit to Venus Colony, Alwarpet, where they have had a vermicompost plant for kitchen waste going for the last five years.
We could also get in touch with Mr. G.Vasudeo, Secretary, Vivekananda Kendra - NARDEP, Kanyakumari - 629 702, Tamil Nadu, e.mail : vknardep@gmail.com, website: vknardep.org, phone 04652- 246296 (office).
Such preliminaries would help a joint delegation of residents and PropCare to take up the issue with Padur panchayat and the neighbouring apartments projects.
The Mamallapuram Initiative could be a small step for us residents, but a giant leap forward for the OMR community on the burning issue of waste management.
ReplyDeleteUncle GVK has highlighted upon this issue since the very beginning. It all starts at home. This article epitomizes some of the workable options on-hand to transcend Padur, Kelambakkam and even the OMR itself into a cleaner, greener and smarter landmark.