With the ever increasing population and urbanization, Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland, is currently grappling with mounting problems of garbage and the waste management has emerged as a huge challenge.
Many cleanliness campaigns and cleanliness drives are conducted regularly, but things seem to go back to square thereafter.
Disposal of waste in an environmentally sound manner minimises the adverse impact on the environment. However, addressing the problem immediately appears somewhat unlikely due to lack of cooperation from different sections of the society. Certain areas in Dimapur such as railway station area, Golaghat road and the road leading to Signal Bosti are no strangers to the odour of garbage piles.
A total of approximately 96 colonies (Recognized and unrecognized) in Dimapur are looked after by Dimapur Municipal Council (DMC). According to DMC administrator, Moa Sangtam, the civic body churns out about 100 metric tonnes of garbage every day.
He said DMC has 14 trucks and two back-hoes that collect the garbage around Dimapur on alternate days for a certain fee.
Under the Swachh Bharat campaign, he said DMC had also distributed two waste bins each to residents of Dimapur, one for dry waste and the other for wet wastes. However, he said these ideas have not been implemented well and residents have failed to segregate their dry and wet wastes.
Shopkeepers in the vicinity of the garbage pile below the fly-over told this reporter that the wastes mostly originate from nearby stalls (Dhabas) and sometimes dumped wastes are left there unattended for days.
The garbage dump at Signal Road seemed to be the worst with a foul smell permeating the air that even motorists have to cover up their mouths when crossing the site.
DMC administrator said the site where the garbage was dumped belongs to the Army and both the DMC and DC Dimapur had written to the Army authorities to requisition the site to the DMC, but were yet to receive a response.
With regard to Golaghat Road, Moa said that DMC has been going door to door collecting garbage, but some people still throw their waste which looks unattended garbage pile in the afternoon.
Moa said the DMC has appealed to organizations, unions and associations to adopt the area and prevent people from dumping their garbage there, but no one has come forward so far.
The official dumping site of the DMC uses various waste management systems like Windrow Composting and Bioremediation, including spraying microbes onto to the garbage to break it down.
Moa asserted that one of the ways to make the management process much easier was to segregate the garbage at the source, which was not being done. Due to this, he said the DMC was planning to acquire a segregation machine to help them with this issue.
With the exponential growth that Dimapur is seeing, proper systems of waste, filth and garbage management have to be implemented both in the official and private senses.
The lack of streamlining and an indifferent attitude of people to garbage until it affects them personally seem to be major contributing factors to the garbage issue.