First of its kind in the district, a TMMT (Trailer Mounted Mobile Toilet), sponsored by Rayagada Municipality and funded under District Mineral Fund (DMF) worth Rs 12 lakh, was inaugurated here by the district Collector.
Apart from Collector Guha Punam Tapas Kumar, Executive Officer, Rayagada Municipality, Sha ti Prabha Pradhan, Vice-Chairperson, Rayagada Municipality Dr Niranjan Buxi Patro, BDO Nrusingha Pattanaik, the PD-DRDA and the PA-ITDA were present.
The TMMT, manufactured by Syntex, has toilets mounted separately for men and women with facilities for face wash, etc. Once the waste tank is full, the trailer has to be dragged and the waste will be dumped at a prescribed place.
“The system is too costly to be replicated in other slums. If the unit is meant for behavioural change, it has a meaning. Unfortunately, the human waste in this system as to be emptied through amanual process.
As the Government is not promoting manual scavenging, it may lose its purpose. This may also cause pollution in a long run and waste management becomes an issue. Instead, bio-toilets could have been an alternative which converts human waste to environment friendly substance,”said Rayagada Citizens’ Forum coordinator Ajay Rath.
DRDO, a research wing of Ministry of Defence, has developed a better technology which disposes human waste in a 100 per cent eco-friendly manner, generates colourless, odourless gas and water. The water, rich with full of nutrients and minerals in the tank too can be effectively used for irrigation in kitchen garden, lawn, etc. The district administration can think of such models in each block headquarters and NACs like Gunupur and Gudari. The industries like JK Papers Mills ltd, IMFA, UAIl and Vedanta must chip in as a part of their CSR, converge with existing initiatives and make Swachh Rayagada in a time bound manner, opined Rath.