SHILLONG, Jan 22: Twice a month every Saturday morning a cross-section of dedicated citizens have been cleaning the Umkaliar river since August 2019. The group under the banner of Operation Clean-Up (OCU) will be entering their fourth year this year. They have been at it, never giving up even when the going gets tough and the river has literally turned into a garbage dump. Each time the team meet to clean this river they sigh at the mound of garbage which includes load and load of clothes – from jackets to pants, sarees, curtains and hundreds of cement bags. All these are ruthlessly dumped into the Umkaliar river. And not just that, but even cars are washed in the middle of the river and all the grease and oil become part of this living being.
From the look at the continued assault that the river is subjected to it would appear that people don’t care that they are actually killing the river and that one day the Umkaliar like the Umkhen might end up as a drain unless there is immediate intervention.
The only assistance that the OCU group have received so far is from the East Khasi Hills deputy commissioner who prods the Shillong Municipal Board to provide the garbage collection trucks and the JCB to help dig out the clothes and gunny bags from the river bed.
During the tenure of Isawanda Laloo as DC, the OCU group had an interface with the Rangbah Shnong of Nongrah, Lapalang, Rynjah and Umpling which are the areas through which the Umkaliar flows. The idea was to ensure that each Shnong controls the garbage disposal mechanism in such a way that residents are warned not to throw garbage into the river and are made to pay for the pollution they cause.
Sadly, things have not moved an inch after those discussions.
The above-mentioned Shnongs (villages) fall under Nongthymmai, Mawryngkneng and Pynthorumkhrah constituencies, yet none of the above three MLAs have turned up at the river site to do a reality check. Neither has the Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB). The OCU group had approached the MSPCB asking it to strictly implement the rules that prohibit washing of vehicles in a flowing river. But that too is a lost cause.
There are times when members of OCU reach a point of despair. Some of them rue the fact that nothing changes two weeks after they have cleaned the river.
“How long can people continue to treat this river like a garbage dump? Is there no rule or law to prevent this criminal act?” ask member after member.
Alas! There are no answers to these questions. There are houses by the river bank whose toilets flow straight into the river. “Whither Swachh Bharat?” they ask.
Barring a brief hiatus during the pandemic in 2020-21, OCU has been working relentlessly to clean up the Umkaliar. But neither the KHADC nor the Water Resources Department or even the Environment and Forest Department have bothered to do what they are mandated to do – to ensure that the rivers of Meghalaya are not killed by uninhibited human activities.
The OCU includes individuals and organisations such as Team Jiva, Col Sishupal Security Company (CSSC), Shubham, KC Secondary School, Martin Luther Christian University, Meghalaya Home Guards, Make Someone Smile, Sikh Youth Association, and recently the Border Security Force and concerned individuals.
The Shillong Times spoke to a senior government official informed of the Water Resources Department. He said that the state government had approved the action plan as part of the River Rejuvenation Programme (RRP) for rejuvenation of the Umkaliar and Umkhrah rivers. He stated that the state government is trying to come up with a community driven programme since at the end it is the community which is supposed to run this initiative.
Asserting that what is important was to rejuvenate the various sources of Umkaliar, the senior official informed that there are many sources leading to Umkaliar right from Power Grid in Lapalang, Northern Territorial Army in Happy Valley, Lumpyngngad, Demthring, and so on.
He further informed that the local communities which are involved in this programme include Umpling-Nongrah sector, Madanrting sector, Mawblei-Demthring-Nongkhyriem sector, Nongthymmai sector and Pohkseh sector.
“Now, it is for the stakeholders and communities to do their part since the action plan of the RRP has already been approved,” the senior official informed.
According to him, the different stakeholders like the Urban Affairs Department, KHADC, local communities and institutions need to shoulder responsibility to carry out the action plan.
“At the district administration level, a meeting was supposed to be held on Thursday last to discuss the action plan. But the meeting could not be held with the transfer of the previous DC,” the senior official informed.
According to him, the next meeting will be fixed only after the upcoming Assembly polls.
Meanwhile, the official informed that the KHADC also has taken steps after they had come up with the Waste Management Act.
“I was informed that the KHADC had issued letters to Umpling, Lapalang and Nongrah on how to go about the rejuvenation of the water bodies,” he said.
Meanwhile, former minister and Pynthorumkhrah MLA, AL Hek recalled that the Water Resources Department during the time when he was the minister in-charge of the department had submitted a proposal for rejuvenating of the Umkhrah and its tributaries.
“I had suggested that the government needs to come up with a programme on the permanent solution to address the pollution of Umkhrah as well as Umkaliar. I could not follow up after as I was no longer a minister,” Hek said.
He however urged the stakeholders including Dorbar Shnongs to actively participate in the rejuvenation of Umkaliar in particular and Umkhrah in general.
Further, KHADC Executive Member in-charge of Water Resources, Rangkynsai Kharbuki said that the Council is yet to earmark any funds for the rejuvenation of Umkhrah and Umkaliar rivers.
“We are taking steps to closely work with the community on how to rejuvenate the various water bodies within the jurisdiction of the council,” Kharbuki said.
While all the above institutions with resources at their command pass the buck from one to the other the rivers are dying a slow death. So much for environmental concerns. Members of the OCU soldier on with the hope that things will change one day but for how long? “But where are the funds meant for river rejuvenation being used?” they question.
