Despite being touted as the cleanest Kumbh Mela till date, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has come down heavily on the state authorities after the Justice Arun Tandon’s committee report found that the solid waste accumulated in Prayagraj, the host city, post Kumbh Mela, has created havoc and brought the city on the verge of an epidemic. Expressing concern over the alarming situation, the NGT has ordered the authorities to deal with it on an urgent basis.
A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, in its order dated April 22, 2019, in M.C.Mehta versus Union of India, has directed the UP chief secretary, Dr. Anup Chandra Pandey, to take urgent steps to dispose of the solid waste that has accumulated in Prayagraj post-Kumbh Mela and fix accountability of officers in this regard. It further added that accountability must be fixed at the ground level and personal supervision by senior-level officers should be ensured. The tribunal said that on perusal of photographs, it was found that there was an urgent need for restoration work for the treatment of sewage water, remediation work for drains and solid waste processing.
Furious with such negligent behaviour, the NGT said, “Shifting of approximately 2000 MT of unsegregated solid waste from the/ Kumbh Mela area to the Solid Waste Management Plant at Baswar knowing fully well that the plant was not operational is grossest violation of the orders of the National Green Tribunal and the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.”
The committee has also found that a large number of toilets had been constructed at various camps on the ‘Poppins’ side very close to the river. Sewage received at the Rajapur STP (Sewage Treatment Plant) was in excess of the installed capacity. Only 50 percent of Rajapur drain was being treated through Geo tube and the remaining 50 percent was being permitted to enter river Ganga without treatment. At Jodhwal Nala Rasoolabad, the capacity of bioremediation technology was 6 million litres per day.
In light of the report, NGT has called for an action plan for handling the untreated solid waste at the Baswar plant. It has ordered the segregation of recyclables, separating the inserts and composting the organic waste.
NGT ordered that the plan must be fully implemented and completed positively before the monsoon is expected to start i.e. June 15, 2019.
The 50-day long 2019 Kumbh Mela, the largest holy congregation in the world, was touted as the costliest and the cleanest in its history. The Uttar Pradesh government, headed by the Hindu saint Yogi Adityanath, had given Rs. 760 crores to Akharas and the right-wing Hindutva party, BJP, had spent Rs. 4200 crores to organize the 2019 Kumbh Mela. Reportedly, the state government had taken steps for installation of over 1.2 lakh eco-friendly toilets and deployed 1,500 volunteers to monitor cleanliness.
In February this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hailed the efforts of the sanitation staff in keeping the 2019 Prayagraj Kumbh Mela clean and had claimed that he had never seen a more cleaner Ganga previously, giving credits to the Namami Gange Project. Modi even cleaned the feet of the sanitation workers who had been tirelessly working during the ongoing Kumbh in Prayagraj.
In spite of all the efforts and after more than a month since the Kumbh Mela was concluded, the environment continues to face the backlash of the harsh and careless behaviour of humans. With climate change and global warming plaguing our environment, there is an urgent need for us to rethink our idea of development and our ways of worship.
It is time that we take the onus on ourselves for the crumbling environment!
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