It also happens to be the sixth anniversary of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a day when the political leadership and also aspiring politicians and self-proclaimed social activists will be out on the streets with brooms sweeping the roads, calling for a clean India. Surely, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has turned into a photo-op for many, as on other days the same people could well be found littering the place.
For instance, consider Goa, we find roads, corners, markets, beaches and other tourist places piled up with waste. The activities of October 2, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, make it seem that waste is generated on just one day and the other 364 days the country and the State are free from waste.
The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan campaign was launched on October 2, 2014 on the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Last year the campaign completed five years, on the 150th anniversary of the Mahatma’s birth. On October 2 again, politicians and the activists will be out with brooms for that symbolic photographs that will show them cleaning a road during a function. Sadly, at the same time at other places there will be piles of garbage lying on roadsides, streets and in vacant plots.
Yes, there has been a considerable change in the mindset of the people where flinging out waste is concerned, especially after the awareness campaigns, but these have to be throughout the year. While doing so we have to also respect our sanitation workers who are disposing off the dirt we create. Daily wage workers from the Corporation of City of Panaji and other municipalities and panchayats enter into drains without any protective clothing, gloves or masks, to clean them. For their efforts, the daily wager gets Rs 400-500 a day, and many skin infections as add ons. How can we say there will be a difference, unless the situation of these daily wagers improves?
The Swachh Bharat Mission has to lay emphasis on providing dignified livelihoods to all sanitation workers and informal waste pickers which is directly in line with the Mahatma’s vision of ensuring equality and inclusion for all sections of society. The focus on cleanliness is right but doing it just on this one day and looking elsewhere on all other days will never help. The mission has to be holistic. Apart from improving the conditions of the daily wagers the government also has to seriously introspect on whether Goa is really Open Defecation Free? The objective of the Swachh Bharat Mission is to make India Open Defecation Free. The Central government claims to have constructed 66 lakh individual household toilets and over 6 lakh community/public toilets in rural areas at a cost of Rs 1.96 lakh crore.
As in case of COVID-19 wherein we called Goa a Green Zone too early, we also hurriedly announced that Goa is ODF just to meet the deadline set by the Centre. But the ground reality is that there is open defecation not only in the slums of Camrabhat, Indira Nagar, Moti Dongor, Zuarinagar etc, but also on the beaches. Some photos of this menace have gone viral on social media in the recent times.
Coming back to the solid waste management, the State is looking at setting up with at least two more SWM plants at Cacora and Bainguinim to reduce the load on the Saligao plant. But instead of getting these huge plants, why does the government not encourage every panchayat to treat its own garbage in its jurisdiction? Why not give them financial assistance for land and a plant to install of their own?
