Livelihood Crisis

It is an unholy mess in the famed Jagannath temple at Puri. The menace of polythene bags continues to mount despite a recent Supreme Court (sc) directive reprimanding the Orissa government over their reckless use. And the biggest victim is the community which has for ages been supplying the temple with bhogei -- woven palm leaf packets in which the prasad is wrapped.

Litter and mounting garbage apart, the polybag is impinging upon the livelihood of the bhogei makers.

Today, the plight of this community is sad and the future of their traditional vocation hangs in balance. Says Baikuntha Behera, a maker of palm leaf packets, "Our daily earning has plummeted from Rs 200 to Rs 100 making it difficult to make ends meet." The community has no one to turn to for succour. "The very administration which earns huge revenues from the temple has left us in the lurch," remarks Lokenath, a bhogei maker.

The community's woes are compounded by the callous district administration and unscrupulous shopkeepers. "Both are hand in glove in promoting polythenes in Puri," points out Lokanath. Behera says, "Demand for our packets is still there, but the shopkeepers tactfully attract the customers to buy prasad in polybags. They even dissuade them from buying bhogeis ." However, a polybag shopkeeper Gopal Mohanty refutes this allegation. Mohanty says, "If a customer wants palm-leaf packets who are we to dissaude them? The portability and waterproof nature of polythene bags attract customers. Moreover, the cost of one bhogei is Re 1 while that of polybag is only 50 paisa."

And so the number of polybag wholesalers operating in the town is increasing by the day. Sadly, the influential priests have not taken any action against these wholesalers. A temple authority, Jagabandhu Parampanda says, "The temple administration can do little in this regard except making people aware of polythene hazards."

Jagannath temple administrator H S Samantray attributes the present sorry scenario to the lack of public awareness. He adds that as far as service of the bhogei makers is concerned, they operate outside the temple premises and their rights are yet to be defined. "As they are illiterate, they fail to fight for their rights," he says.

The polythene waste produced in the Jagannath temple is contributing to the solid waste problem. According to Gopinath Yubak Sangha, a ngo, around 100 tonnes of garbage is produced in Puri everyday. Out of this, the municipality can collect only 60 tonnes only. The rest lies in the open.

The solid waste treatment plant set up four years ago by the Puri municipality can not recycle polythene and so the polybags are heaped near the plant.

As the polythene pestilence escalates in Puri posing livelihood crisis to the bhogei- making community, the Supreme Court Division Bench comprising Justice Gopaballava Patnaik and Ruma Pal has summoned the state chief secretary to Delhi. Previously, the Court had asked the Orissa government to allocate Rs 43 crore in the state budget to combat pollution hazards. However, the state government dawdled without giving much heed to the judgment.

The municipality and the temple administration continue to pass the buck over the polythene issue. The municipality passed two resolutions to ban polybags in its council meeting, which were later submitted to the district magistrate. Executive officer of Puri municipality says, "We cannot go beyond our limitations. The lacunae is with those who should implement the ban."

The Shree Mandir temple administration says that its jurisdiction is confined only to the temple premises where polybags were banned in March 2000. "We cannot keep watch over all the shops and the people in and around the Jaganath temple," says Samantray. Amidst the imbroglio, the bhogei makers continue to struggle in silence.