On a daily basis, Guwahati city generates around 500 tonnes of garbage. During the four days of Durga Puja celebrations, however, over 100 tonnes of extra garbage is generated each day. In four days of Puja, the city produces garbage equivalent to the amount produced in five normal days, officials at the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) informed G Plus.
Garbage produced during this period mostly constitutes of diyas and flowers offered during prayers.
During Durga Puja, the city witnesses a substantial increase in the number of street side food stalls that too lead to more garbage production in the form of leftover food and disposable cutlery.
The next big contributor to the extra garbage is the mess left behind at the ghats following idol immersion. “After the immersion rituals are carried out, garbage including items made of plastic are seen in abundance around the ghats,” informed a GMC official.
GMC, however, lacks the infrastructure and manpower to cater to the increased waste and keep the city clean. The administration, therefore, direct the NGOs involved in garbage collection to prioritise pandals and immersion ports over households during Durga Puja. In the process, residents of the city start facing problems disposing of their garbage.
To smoothen the process, NGOs had been assigned their respective pandals, guidelines had been issued to fix disposal times and the puja committees had been directed to implement waste segregation at source. Further, the use of plastic was prohibited.
GMC officials informed G Plus that the amount of garbage collected during Durga Puja has been increasing by the year. Further, Kachomari ghat in Fancy Bazaar continues to be the highest producer of waste, being the most popular immersion port of the city. The other immersion ports that too produced a substantial amount of waste were the Pandu and Pan Bazaar ghats.
Eco-friendly approach adopted by pandals goes for a toss
Several Durga Puja pandals adopted the eco-friendly approach this year and made special efforts to use biodegradable products in the celebrations.
Plastic has been one of the major causes of pollution in the city, choking drains and making up a majority of the garbage collected from households in Guwahati. Considering this, the district administration had appealed to the puja organising committees to refrain from using plastic this year in order to be more conscientious towards the environment and eco-system.
However, Manojit Bujarbaruah, executive engineer of GMC informed G Plus that not only was a vast chunk of the garbage generated during Durga Puja consisted of plastic, the overall garbage production also saw an increase compared to previous years.
Officials from the Guwahati Municipal Corporation, along with district administration and city police held a joint meeting with members of various puja organising committees from all over the district ahead of the festival to issue a set of guidelines to be followed for organising Durga Puja.
During the meeting, Assistant Deputy Commissioner (Kamrup), Pulak Mahanta, requested the puja committees to refrain from using plastic in any form such as plastic plates, bottles, glasses or polythene bags inside the pandals. He said that plastic is one of the major causes of water logging during the rainy season in the city.
“I request you all to avoid using plastic and not throw them in the nearby drains in order to prevent water logging in the future,” he said.
The GMC workers were deployed to clean the pandal premises across the city twice every day during the festival period. The garbage collectors worked round the clock for immediate collection in order to keep the city clean, especially after the immersion of idols.
“Our NGOs continued to work post-midnight to clean the pandal areas and ghats after roadside vendors, puja committees and the general public left behind huge piles of garbage. Even though the government has been increasingly spreading awareness about cleanliness, the public does not seem to care enough about the environment. As a result of which, we have to deploy additional manpower and vehicles to clean the city,” emphasised Manojit Bujarbaruah.
He added that the citizens lack conscience and without their support, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan will never be a success.
