Case study of SLRM unit of Vandse Grama Panchayth, Kundapura, Udupi District 5.2.1 Background and location of Vandse Village Vandse is a Village in Kundapura Taluk in Udupi District of Karnataka State. It is 16 KM away from Kundapura which is the taluk head quarters and is in the foot hills of the Mukambika reserved forest. Hakladi, Aluru, Hattiangadi, Talluru, Hemmadi are the nearby Villages to Vandse. Chakra River flows in the south and coastal topography signifies the topography in the west. It is located in the coastal region of Arabian Sea hence has humid weather in most part of the year. 5.2.2. Demography According to 2011 Census Details Total population is 3329 and they are spread in 2441 acres of land in 674 HH. Female Population is 53.3%. Village literacy rate is 71.4% and the Female Literacy rate is 35.0% and Tulu is the Local Language. There are three Anganwadi centres, 2 lower primary schools and one Aided higher primary school , one primary health centre, Veterinary hospital, village accountant office, “Nemmadi Kendra” , post office , one nationalised Bank, six co-operative society and number of temples and one mosque and weekly market to cater to the agriculturists. 5.2.3. Governance Vandse is a single village panchyath and it has 7 elected members and most of them have afflation towards Congress party for many years. This small village panchayth has been the hobli headquarters since the British period and was known for as port for lumbering business. This GP has carved its own unique identity for its activities as a model local self government in 1 the region. It has been active in taking up mass awareness programmes in areas of sanitation and village development activities; Vandse GP received the award for open defecation free GP in October 2nd 2015 and It was awarded the ‘Gandhi Grama Puraskar” in October2nd in 2016. The District administration of Udupi recommended this GP to study the good practices for the Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) model. Vandse is a single village panchayth and its population is around 2500 (2011 census). There are 7 elected members who seem to have working unanimously to address the Health and Education issues in the panchayth form a very long time. It is with great pride that the he mentions about the collective efforts of the old students, GP and with local institutional support, the model Government Higher primary school is able to provide quality education and has very good infrastructure. The intake of students is restricted to 35 per class and it has its own bus facility to bring and drop school children which is very rare for a government school. The GP president, Mr. Udaya kumar Shetty, needs a special mention here because of his exemplary leadership he has given for the development of the Village. Moreover, he is also the president of the federation of the GP presidents of Kudapur block and he is known among GP presidents in Udupi district. 5. Waste management scenario before Swatcha Bharath Mission (SBM) Though the SBM had selected Vandse GP for a grant of Rs. 20 lakh but GP could not get the grant released as it did not had the document of land proposed for resource generation yard. Meanwhile serious discussion was going on in the committee about Indiscrimate waste disposal by HH as well as commercial establishments by the chakra river and the issue continued to be publish in local news papers. This led to GP body to look out for alternative solutions for disposal of waste. The GP members visited Laila GP in Belthangadi to study their model and ultimately, with the help of District administration and Zilla Panchayath , Udupi, the Solid and Liquid Resource Management( SLRM) concept by Indian Green Services led by Mr. Vellore Srinivas Rao. 5.2.5 Waste management through SLRM by Vandse Grama Panchayath The SLRM concept proposes the environment and people friendly approach based on the Gandhian philosophy of co-existence between ‘man and ecology’. In this model, the waste is segregated in to resources on scientific manner and without using machinery. Even though it looks quite a complex process, but it does not 2 affects environment, economically viable and generates local employment. The first SLRM project of Karnataka was inaugurated in Vandse GP by the Deputy Commissioner, Ms. Priyanka Mary Francis on 16 September 2017. Project aims to convert Udupi district into a garbage-free district by 2018. The chief project officer of this project is Mr. A. Srinivas Rao of ZP Udupi. The journey of Vandse GP in the in addressing the waste management through the SLRM project had lot of ups and downs. The first challenge they faced was from the trained Volunteers. Just before few days from launch date in September 2017, they refused to participate in the segregation process demanding better wages. So, GP had to immediately make an alternative arrangement by inviting volunteers from the nearby GP’s in the pretext of training and managed to start the unit as per schedule. Later on, some of them were continued as regular functionaries of SLRM project. But, soon after, there was an objection from the neighbours of the proposed SLRM unit location where the proposed Anganwadi centre is to come up. Their objections were about the foul smell and unhygienic condition that the unit would create in their neighbourhood. But again, GP was successful in negotiating with the complainant on the condition that if their complaint comes true, then GP promised to shift the unit from location. Eventually, localities were convinced and they did not object further. SLRM co-operative society was registered on 7th Sept 2017 with 15 members drawn from GP, PDO and SHG groups under the Co-operative societies Act and started collecting and processing the waste in to resources in Vandse GP. 6. Practices of waste management at Household(HH) and Commercial Establishment(CE) level Today SLRM unit collects wastes from 100 HH (699 HH) and 149 (100%) commercial establishments. There is a TATA Ace vehicle to transport waste and it makes two trips daily. A total of 912 colour coded plastic bins, Green for wet waste and Red for Dry waste is being distributed to HH as well as the commercial establishments. But still a large number of HH are remains to be covered. The wastes are collected and transported to the SLRM segregation units and wet wastes are composted in the 3 aerobic method and the dry wastes are segregated and kept ready for market. Interestingly, dry waste is segregated up to 36 items. The unit operates with 6 members (4 females +2 males) the male functionaries are basically drivers and collectors. While the female volunteers does the segregation work and a supervisor (Vijaya Lakshmi) maintains registers and log books. The wastes from all the HH and commercial shops are collected and segregated in the SLRM yard twice a day i.e, once in the morning around 8-9 am and second round of collection is at 3-4 pm. This is to ensure that the wet waste is processed in the yard well before the decomposition process sets. They maintain records of all the wastes collected and classify them as; a) In organic recyclable items; Plastic items, covers, paper cups, cardboard, bottles, tetra pack and electronic items etc. b) Non re-cyclable items; c) Non-bio degradable waste. The unit works from morning 6 am to evening 6pm and they are paid Rs. 10,000/- month. They maintain the work shed and clean them every day before closing the day’s work without fail. The functionaries work with their uniform, hand gloves, caps and mouth mask and it gives an organised working atmosphere. Currently, the unit is operating from ¾ government workers quarters and it has just sufficient space for office, segregation of wet waste, dry waste, storage of segregated resources and most interestingly, a cow shed with two cows and its calf’s. They are maintained by the GP for the purpose of cow dung slurry required for composting wet waste on daily basis. These cows are fed with fresh wastes collected from the vegetable shops and market. Hence, to that extent, the system is sustainable. However, the President strongly feels that the ZP should ensure competitive market/rates for their segregated resources on regular basis or else they should be permitted to find its own market so that the segregated items should be sold immediately so that the funds advanced to SLRM is recovered. Secondly, the support of district marketing network is really not helping them to get a good price for their resources and in the long run will be a problem for maintainece of the Unit. According to GP president, the expenditure and income are at breakeven level. The GP is extending the financial support to pay the monthly salary to these volunteers (Rs. 85,600/- per month). Meanwhile, GP levy’s cess slab is as follows; Rs.30/- per month for one bin (either green or Red) and 60 per two 4 bins. The commercial establishment of small size are charged Rs.60/- and 150/- if it is disposing higher wastes. The most critical issue according to GP president is the release Rs. 20 lakh grant under the ‘Swatcha Bharath Mission’ by Govt of India. Their proposal for the grant was turned down since land record for the SLRM unit (2 acres of land) was not in GP’s name. But, now that they have it, they want the grant to be released immediately or else, the sustainability of the waste management of Vandse will be in danger.