Author: Stephen David
Publication: India Today
Date: February 11, 2008
URL: http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&&issueid=40&id=4111&Itemid=1&page=in&latn=2
Introduction: A plastic-free village in Karnataka
is a model for all while Unicef takes a leaf out of its book
The R.K. Pachauris and Al Gores of the world
can rejoice. The planet is neither going into meltdown nor is it going to
be buried in plastic. Not till there are villages like Ira around. This village
of 1,300 families in Bantwal taluk of Mangalore has been inspired by a revolutionary
self-help movement called Apna Desh to take on leadership role and to keep
it free of plastic waste.
The basic philosophy is to promote community
ownership of public places like roads, street lights, drinking water facilities
and schools. "The whole idea is locals managing their own affairs by
working closely with the government, the people and other key agencies,"
say volunteers Krishna Moolya and Sheena Shetty.
The duo often brings government officials
and the people together. Shetty says Ira's success story began with the implementation
of the Centre's Sampoorna Swachata Andolana or the total sanitation project.
Ira's panchayat secretary Chandrashekhara
Pathur says Apna Desh volunteers educated them about the negative effects
of plastic. Pathur has helped build a "plastic hill" from the village
waste, which will later be taken to a Bangalore recycling company that uses
it to build roads.
Villagers use cloth bags and fine people for
littering. The credit for the Apna Desh campaign, which is a decade old, goes
to former deputy commissioner of Mangalore Bharat Lal Meena. He taught villagers
to use eco-friendly cloth bags and motivated them to carry on with this outreach
programme to other villages.
A Unicef team came calling to Ira recently
and even took notes from the villagers, who gave a lowdown on how PVC was
one of the world's largest dioxin source, that excessive use of plastics was
better avoided and what were the problems of plastic waste disposal.
The village also hosted a 28-member team from
a Kerala gram panchayat and teams from other districts like Gulbarga and Mysore.
Visitors go back vowing to replicate the model elsewhere too. National rural
development department officials have been here to study the development pattern.
It helps that Ira is also totally literate.
Apna Desh has everyone pitching in: Vittala
legislator Padmanabha Kottari launched Nirmala Gram Yojana in the taluk while
Bantwal panchayat members dug toilet pits for free, helping Ira win Nirmal
Gram Puraskar of the Centre.
A Bantwal farmer has offered 10 acre land
for Apna Desh. "Anybody can replicate the concept. This is our country
and we have to build it. The government is not a faceless entity. It is ordinary
villagers, like in Ira or Bantwal taluk, who make it," says Meena. They
are making a difference too.
