SHILLONG: Every single day the staff of Team Jiva mentored and led by Jiwat (Babloo) Vaswani sweep different parts of the city. Armed with their brooms and gloves assisted by a pick-up van which the punctilious Babloo has invested in and which carts the garbage to Marten, these young men work with complete dedication to the task at hand.
The Jiva team is an integral part of The Shillong Times led Operation Clean-up that started in August 2019 and which has been cleaning up River Umkaliar successively for several months to reduce the garbage flow into the Umkhrah River.
Operation Clean-up has dedicated volunteers from schools and colleges; the most regular ones being Kiddies Corner, Seven Set School, Women’s College, Bethany Society and Martin Luther University.
There are other dedicated groups namely MakeSomeoneSmile, The Green Signal, Team Bamboo Hut, Green Volunteers’ Conclave of Meghalaya Basin Development Agency, the St Edmund’s Batch of 79 etc.
Two hoteliers, Larsing Ming Sawyan and Babloo Vaswani have invested substantial financial and physical resources.
On its part The Shillong Times as the facilitator of Operation Clean-up has worked closely with the District Administration, East Khasi Hills under Matsiewdor War Nongbri and the Shillong Municipal Board led by Batlang Sohliya.
They have provided excellent support to Operation Clean-up by providing the necessary logistics such as trucks for picking up garbage, JCB to rake up the garbage from the river etc. This Government-civil society cooperation is indispensable if Shillong and its rivers have to be rid of garbage.
Operation Clean-up is on a winter break as schools and colleges are on vacation. The work will resume on February 8, 2020 and will continue every second and fourth Saturdays of the month.
To cut down on the continued use and sale of single use plastics bags which are the biggest polluters in the State of Meghalaya, The Shillong Times had given out 10,000 cloth bags to people in different parts of the city.
Several departmental stores have also started giving out cloth bags on payment.
What’s worrying is the continued use of plastic bags including those promoted by a local agency that claims that the bags are bio-degradable without any physical or scientific proof.
Fish and meat vendors in particular have not come up with alternatives to plastic bags.
However, there are small vendors in Iewduh selling chillies, lemons, tree tomatoes et al that have now come up with paper bags despite not having huge transactions. These are caring humans who ought to be rewarded for going the extra mile and respecting the KHADC ban on plastics.
The plastic bags have to be stopped at source which the KHADC has not succeeded to do.
As long as single use plastics are allowed to come into the state banning them will be a challenge.
Now that the former Executive Committee is no longer holding the reins of office, it is doubtful if the ban on plastics by the previous EC would hold good.
Interestingly, even the State Government does not seem to have the political will to ban all plastics bags from entering the state. Alternatives will emerge only when people can no longer use plastic bags.
A few hotels and restaurants in the city such as City Hut Dhaba, Centre Point, Tripura Castle Heritage Hotel have stopped giving plastic water bottles to guests. They serve water in glass bottles. These may seem insignificant but they go a long way in preventing plastic bottles from polluting and choking our drains, rivers and streams.
On Saturday, January 18, Team Jiva cleaned up the Upper Shillong, 3rd Mile area and can be seen with several loads of garbage. They branch out in all directions, sometimes towards the Shillong–Guwahati road and at other times towards Sohra. The challenge is to make the localities take ownership of the cleanliness campaign which is yet to happen. Although some localities have awakened to the need to clean up their backyards, it will require much more effort from the Dorbar Shnong to take this mission forward.
Shillong and its suburbs need more volunteers like Team Jiva for a makeover. Sadly, many of the hoteliers of Shillong and beyond who should be the main stakeholders in keeping Shillong and all the tourist spots clean have not joined the campaign. Let’s hope they join Operation Clean-up this year.
