Hit by disasters like floods and cyclones almost every year, Behrampur in Odisha faces a huge challenge in maintaining the cleanliness & hygiene. Former Berhampur Municipal Commissioner Anjana Panda, OAS-Government of Odisha writes about her efforts in meeting the challenges
Berhampur, the City Berhampur is located on the eastern coastline of the country, approximately 9km away from Bay of Bengal. It has good connectivity by road and railway. The city is a business hub of Southern Odisha and has gained much significance because of its proximity to the tourist destination Gopalpur port and Vishakhapatnam. With having prime, renowned educational institutions to its name, it is known for its excellence in academics and the culture of curricular activities. The city is renowned as “Silk City” for its exquisite handicraft works and hand-woven silk.
The city covers an area of 39.07sqm and it has to its name the oldest Municipality in Odisha. It was constituted in 1867 and attained the status of Municipal Corporation in 2008. The Corporation comprises of 40 wards.
Waste Challenges
The basic challenges faced by the city are water supply, drainage, access to toilets, slums and last but not the least solid waste management. All these challenges almost relate to age old infrastructure facilities available and the traditional style of life maintained by the local people. The city has experienced two severe cyclones namely Super Cyclone, 1999 and Phailin in 2013 and a recent one named Hud Hud in 2014. All these disasters made the infrastructure of the city quite vulnerable. In the above backdrop, it became very difficult to make the city clean in true sense.
As the Commissioner, I felt public awareness and participation is the total solid waste generated per day is around 160 tonnes, out of which 68% is collected and disposed of in the outskirts of the town in the open field. With very less manpower and infrastructure, it is very much difficult to maintain sanitation and hygiene of the city. The people have a tendency to throw domestic garbage into open drains which usually causes choking of drains. The other issue about disposal of household liquid wastes including toilet wastes into the open drains. Around 25% people don’t have access to toilets. Twenty-seven public toilets are present in the city yet most of them are in bad condition, except a few managed by Sulabh Souchalya. Berhampur is one of the few cities which have large slum population. The other most important challenge the city faces is the maintenance of large number of water bodies. People prefer to eat out and this has resulted in a number of food stalls making the City most vulnerable to non-hygienic conditions.
Initiatives Taken
For the all-round development of the city, following steps were taken:
- Collection at Night: A few new steps were approved by the Corporation like collection of food waste at night from the food stalls in the market areas on experiment basis.
- Express cleaning system: Collection of garbage from the apartments, restaurants, hotels, private hospitals (no paramedical garbage) on a daily basis and payment basis through privatisation
- Sanitation awareness week programme was organised. A sanitation awareness chariot moved through each ward and apprised people through announcement how to make their environment cleaner and healthier. Drinking water pouches were banned.
- New Dustbins were distributed to the food stalls and slum dwellers. Over 1000 dustbins were distributed, sponsored by Banks under CSR. College and School children participated in different rallies to support this cause. Leaflets were distributed, flexes were put up and a toll-free number was activated to help speeding communication. Some of the unclean transit points were cleaned by the Commissioner, other officials with the help of local people. Instructions issued to all municipal shops to keep dustbins in their shops otherwise fines at `50 per day will be collected.
- Water management Committee and sanitation committee were constituted.
- Street vendors were asked to put up small posters to encourage awareness about cleaning & hygiene. All sweepers were
asked to put jackets for their identification and regular sweeping. Ponds were cleaned by local Corporates and Corporation officials. . People were warned not to throw domestic garbage and polythene bags in water bodies or drains. Almost 10 kilometres of drain were cleaned every day to prevent waterborne diseases. - Commissioner and health officer supervised the sanitation of the city in the mornings on a regular basis.
Besides this much more steps need to be taken like construction of more community toilets with maintenance accountability, segregation of waste at source itself by janitors, participation of public in the day-to-day sanitation work in their lane and increased involvement of Corporates, NGOs and other committees in the ongoing sanitation work in the City. Authority, the trustee and other committee members must apprised not to throw ritual wastage in the ponds even which make the ponds more unclean. Lifting of pipelines from drain need to be taken immediately. Greenery in the roadside and more open space very much required.