Clean - Green Kumily : A sustainable model of Solid Waste Management Practice

‘Thekaddy’ is known as the one of the most popular international tourist destination and Kumily is the gateway of . Kumily town and Thekkady together have about 2000 number of hotels, resorts, homestays and commercial establishments. It is one of the important biodiversity centre identified by UNEP. The National Tiger Reserve, the , gardens, etc. are chief attractions of the region. Besides, every year from November to January about 15 lakhs of pilgrims from , Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and North Indian states travels through Kumily. This influx of pilgrims and tourists create a lot of challenges on sanitation and waste management, created huge waste piles year after year. Taking into account of the issues, the Panchayat Samithy took a decision to solve the issues and formed a comprehensive project on total sanitation of the Kumily panchayat named as “Clean Kumily-Green Kumily” on August 16th, 2006. The important objective of the project are to make Kumily a totally clean village and the major activities include: 1. Make the people aware of need for personal hygiene 2. Encourage segregation of wastes into biodegradable and non-biodegradables 3. Providing sanitary latrines, soakage pits and different waste management facilities to all households 4. Encouraging flower garden and kitchen garden 5. Promotion of rearing domestic animal 6. Organising massive peoples participatory cleaning of canals, streams, drainages and 7. continuous Information, Education & Communication (IEC) programs under TSC By 2007 Kumily Gramapanchayat became one of the pioneer GPs in the state to bag Nirmal Gram Puraskar of GOI. Unlike other GPs the waste management has become a primary activity of the GP and it is being carried out incredibly well. A registered society formed for managing waste collection, segregation and management with paid staff and periodical meetings of the society with participation of representatives from different agencies. To strengthen the system of waste management, GP provided bins for segregated storage of wastes among the wards in Kumily town. Grama panchayat prepared a special project for vermi-compost plant with the help of TSC and installed at Murukkady with the capacity of treating 1000kg biodegradables into compost per day. Collection fee charged ranging from Rs.250- 3000 per month from shops, hotels, homestays, resorts etc. Plastic shredding and recycling unit are installed and are functioning well with the support of Forest Department, Thekkady. one incinerator for reducing load of wastes other than plastics and biodegradables has also been Installed.

Representatives from LSGIs from , other states, students and many agencies also visit here to learn about the best practices of waste management system. The vision of the local body, peoples participation, effective awareness creation, continuous monitoring and evaluation system, cooperation between departments and the support from Suchitwa Mission, TSC etc. are the major influential factors behind the success of the sustainable waste management system in Kumily Grama Panchayat.