Says he was inspired by senior official's initiative to hold regional meeting in cleaned dump yard
DTE correspondent
Most parents would book a hotel, banquet hall or a farm house for their child's wedding. But the municipal commissioner of Salur in Vizianagaram district of Andhra Pradesh has decided to marry off his daughter in a somewhat different style. He is organising his daughter's wedding in a resource park which is a part of a 3.4 hectare dump site, which has been cleaned and beautified. The date and time of wedding: Sunday (May 27), 11 am.
Shaikh Subhani, who took over as Salur's municipal commissioner in March 2011, cleaned up Salur's choked waste site, located within the town, in 40 days, piling the waste 4.5 metre high in a 0.2 hectare corner. This stabilized waste is being hidden with screens.
Subhani's decision to hold his daughter's wedding in the beautified dump yard was inspired, he says, by the state's director of municipal administration, Janardhan Reddy’s initiative of holding his regional meeting in nearby Bobbili town's cleaned dump yard in July 2011. Reddy has inspired 14 towns to similarly clean up their waste yards.
Suryapet in Nalgonda district with a population of 103,000 became India's first fully waste-management-compliant city in 2003. The clean up act was led by the then municipal commissioner S A Khadar Saheb, now the state's joint director of municipal administration.
The Salur dump site now features a resource park with plantations, and space allotted for vermi-composting and stack composting of 2 tonnes of pulverised wet waste each day. The town generates approximately 12 tonnes of waste per day, eighty percent of which is covered by door-to-door collection. The mixed waste is then sorted. A gobar gas unit runs on animal dung. Drains are cleared. All waste management is now done by just 80 workers.
Salur, with a population of 50,490, is a curious mix of rolling hills, verdant scenery and jasmine plantations combined with an industrial automotive centre. Plastic carry-bags were banned in this transport hub through persuasion and voluntary compliance from August 15, 2011.
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