Greening, cleaning of Mcleod Ganj an uphill task


Archana Phull

CHANDIGARH, (Indian Express) April 20, 1998. The Green workers with the Clean Upper Dharamsala project, being run by the Tibetan Welfare Office, are all set to make the spiritual environs in the Dalai Lamaís settlement, Mcleod Ganj, clean and green at any cost.

"Every place on the earth should be protected from ecological degradation and more so the His Holiness the Dalai Lamaís seat in exile", express these green workers. They can be seen out in the field day and night, armed with brooms, buckets and a friendly smile as they cope with the pressures of a burgeoning population, heavy tourist influx and refugees trickling in from Tibet in increasing numbers.

The Tibetan Welfare Office had started the Clean Upper Dharamsala project about three years ago with an objective to save the environment and surrounding hills from decadence, through peopleís participation. With a staff of 12 regular employees, including the six green workers, the project involves collection of waste from door-to-door and recycling it after proper sorting out at an indigenous recycling unit in the middle of Mcleod Ganj Bazaar, so as to stop dumping of scrap everywhere.

The green workers move around the township with bins to collect refuse from every house in the area and spread the massage on protecting the environment. With a meager salary of Rs 1,600 per month, they work from dawn to dusk and handle over two tons of waste in four weeks, which is then recycled.

However, the green workers are by no means discouraged with the cool response of the ordinary folks, especially hoteliers who are the least cooperative.

"We have not been able to convince the Tibetans and Indians in the area fully. Our efforts have also proved futile at times. For example, people who have been given a jute bag for putting in the household waste, are instead using it for carrying vegetables from the market. Also, many residents just bang the door on our face," says Shairu, a green worker with the project.

He says that though the hoteliers of Mcleod Ganj had resolved to ban the use of plastic bags and other non-degradable material about a year ago, at the initiative of the Beopar Mandal, the move fell through with the passage of time. Choked channels and garbage-strewn passages in front of good hotels in the town speak volumes about the apathetic approach of this particular community.

Incidentally, the tourists, mostly foreigners, who are normally blamed for spoiling the beauty of the verdant hills around the Tibetan township by excessive dumping of plastic mineral water bottles, are becoming keen volunteers for saving the environment now. "The foreigners work with us off and on and are slowly parting with the habit of using the plastic water bottles in great numbers as we have opened a green shop to refill their bottles with filtered and distilled water all throughout the day," comments Dawa Tsering, who is in charge of the Tibetan Welfare Office. The project has the involvement of youth volunteers from Tibetan schools and almost all the Tibetan government offices donate some money for the environment programme, which is also foreign-funded to a great extent. "But what is really hampering the progress is that neither the Dharamsala Municipal Council nor the district administration have come forward to help, despite the fact that the MC is responsible for overall cleanliness of the area. The Corporation had promised to give us Rs 25,000 every year for the purpose and four labourers along with a truck for carrying away the garbage, but nothing has come of it so far," laments Dawa Tsering.

"The district authorities also donít seem to be bothered. We only wanted them to dump the waste paper from the DCís office at one point so that we could easily collect it and recycle it to earn some money, but all in vain," he added. Yet for the entire group of green workers, the sole consolation is that Mcleod Ganj would have become worse had they not taken the initiative to clean it.

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