Mindless pollution: Teenagers shocked over sorry state of Umkaliar river

SHILLONG, March 16: Operation Clean-Up (OCU), a citizens’ group comprising concerned individuals, groups, and institutions committed to cleaning rivers has been at it since 2019. They have been faithfully keeping to the schedule of cleaning up the Umkaliar river every fortnight. Their objective has been to concentrate on the upper reaches of the Umkhrah at the Umkaliar river. Their contention is that if the garbage is trapped before it enters the Umkhrah then there will be less garbage to deal with.
Nearly six years down the line, the OCU team is overwhelmed by a deep desperation. So far, neither the MLA of the area where the Umkaliar flows through, nor the MDC has ever thought it fit to lend a helping hand in cleaning up the mess.
The only politician who has lent some support to the OCU team was former KHADC CEM, Pyniaid Sing Syiem who visited the site twice with his team and was supposed  to construct some barrier by the side of the Umkaliar to prevent people from washing vehicles right in the middle of the river, thereby causing massive pollution.
Although OCU had visited a few schools to enlist their support in cleaning up rivers, the only school that responded and has been consistently bringing students to clean the river is KC Secondary School led by its headmaster Brian Wahlang.
Other integral members of OCU include Jiva Cares led by Jiwat Vaswani, team Shubham led by Payal Bajaj, Col Shishupal Security Company (CSSC), Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU), IIM Shillong, Meghalaya Home Guards and committed individuals who show up every time a clean-up message is put up.
When the OCU team arrived at the Umkaliar on Saturday, they found the river water almost black in shade with tonnes of garbage right in the middle of the river. Further down, women were washing clothes as usual completely unaffected by the fact that they were using dirty and polluted water to wash their clothes in.
Mawjop Marwein, a Class 7 student of KC Secondary School, and his friends waded in the river and along with Team Jiva Cares began their cleaning up job in right earnest.
Mawjop, with a look of incredulity asked one of the senior members of OCU why people were so cruel to the river. He was teary-eyed and took up the rake to pull out all the garbage from the river. He worked diligently, not stopping to take a breath as if his life depended on it.
He looked at the women washing clothes without batting an eyelid and asked his teammates why they were not helping in the cleaning drive. There was no answer and there is no answer. The residents of Nongmensong wash their clothes there every single day and also discard plastic and soap containers in the river. They just don’t care because they think it is not their duty to keep the river clean.
And that’s the problem: Citizens think it’s the duty of government to clean up streets, drains and rivers and it is their right to pollute.
The OCU team has been pursuing with the KHADC to make car washing in the Umkaliar a punishable offence with a heavy fine to deter such individuals from doing so but the Nongmensong Dorbar Shnong has shown no inclination to stop the pollution of the river within their jurisdiction.
The problem with enforcing anything to do with the environment is the lack of cohesion from different stakeholders. It’s time the KHADC, the Dorbar Shnong, the Forest and Environment department and the Water Resources department along with citizens’ groups converge and come up with a master plan that is designed to work.
Studies by the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi state that Meghalaya is heading for a drought. Before that calamity arrives the state ought to take cogent steps to avert this environmental disaster.
KHADC Executive Member in charge of environment, Aibandaplin F Lyngdoh and KHADC Chairman Strong Pillar Kharjana were present to observe the state of the Umkaliar and to figure out what action the council can take to reduce the pollution level.