By Eleanor Sangma
Tura, Aug 14: The work to clean up garbage that has been spilled from the Tura Municipal Board’s landfill in Rongkhon Songgital has started on Friday. Garo Students Union (GSU) CEC Tura, Rongkhon Songgital Youth Environment Committee, Cemetery Committee and the elders of the area conducted a joint inspection along with Urban Affairs Department on Thursday in order to assess the damage, and were promised speedy work.
The Urban Affairs department started clearing the path near the cemetery to aid their work.
The locals are helping the team by guiding them through the area. Chegan N Marak, publicity secretary, GSU stated, “Since it’s a local cemetery, we have to be very careful.”
Marak said that they have given the authorities a period of six months to find a new plot along with construction and relocation of the facility. It has been a major cause of trouble for the residents of the area.
They have made several complaints regarding garbage spilling over from the landfill to the Christian cemetery and the Ringre stream, which many people source their water from for their daily needs.
After the inspection, the authorities gave their word to clear all the garbage as well as build a retaining wall. “However, one problem with this is that all the trash will go back to the same area, so there is a dire need for a new land,” stated Marak.
The amount of garbage collected from the whole town has increased along with the increase in population. “Throwing garbage in a small one to two bigha of land might have worked in the earlier days, but not now,” he added.
According to him, what has been promised is only a temporary solution as the current plot is too small for proper waste management. “Even if they do build a retaining wall, in the long run there will be no point as the place will be filled up with trash again,” he said.
Marak stated that what has been promised has to be fulfilled immediately, possibly within this month. After the garbage has been cleared, work on the wall has to be started somehow, he added.
The landfill is posing serious health hazards for people. According to Marak, even human waste is not disposed properly. “They carelessly dump it there, which eventually spills over to the cemetery,” he said. The septic tank is also not in use.
Another issue is the pollution of Ringre stream. Marak stated, “The water has turned black because of the spilled trash.”
He urged the public to not use the water for some time. “I think it would be better if the State Pollution Control Board comes and tests the water as a lot of people are using it,” he added.
He hopes once a new landfill is found, there will be some form of relief. Waste management can be done more systematically and scientifically, he said.
Marak also talked about the responsibility of the public in aiding proper management of waste through segregation of bio degradable and non-bio degradable waste. “There is no systematic segregation from our (public’s) side. The authorities such as TMB also need to increase awareness regarding the practice,” he said.
The action to clear the area comes after a threat to lock down the landfill facility by the Rongkhon Songgital Youth Environment Committee along with the residents. This has been a result of repeated complaints against the unhygienic and unsystematic disposal of garbage in the area, with no steps taken by concerned authorities.