Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (MS)

Bantwal, Apr 20: A gram panchayat in the taluk has gone as step ahead in making the village free of open waste. In addition, the panchayat has given the total responsibility of waste management to women and they are doing an exemplary work.

Kadeshwalya panchayat is the one which has started open-waste free campaign. It has entered into an agreement with Mathr Sanjivini Federation of the village. Women of the federation have taken this as challenge. They shoulder all responsibilities of waste handling, right from collection and segregation of waste to driving the vehicles. Two women drivers are collecting waste of 376 houses of four wards of the panchayat.

The panchayat has distributed 1,048 waste bins. The residents give the generated waste to the panchayat once in a week or month according information shared by Kadeshwalya PDO Sunil Kumar and panchayat president Suresh Shettigar.

Two drivers, Laxmi and Pramila, are trained in driving by the panchayat itself. Earlier, the villagers were not paying the money for collection of waste. But now they have understood the expenses involved and are paying without default.

Around 25 kilo of dry waste and 30 to 35 kilo of wet waste is being collected every day. A unit is built to store the waste. The wet waste is converted into manure while dry waster is recycled. The panchayat gets revenue from this also.

The panchayat has also decided to plant arecanut trees in the plot which is by the side of the waste handling unit thereby making good use of the manure that is produced in the wet waste handling plant.

One cannot see a pile of garbage under the limits of Kadeshwalya gram panchayat. The panchayat has become a model to all the other panchayats of the districts as per district cleanliness ambassador Sheena Shetty.