Categories
India News Politics Punjab

Punjab Congress Chief Firmly Opposes Land Survey

Warring accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of undermining Punjab’s case in the matter…reports Asian Lite News

Punjab Congress President, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, responded strongly to the Supreme Court’s directive for a land survey in Punjab related to the construction of the SYL canal. He firmly stated, “Punjab has no surplus water to share, and there is no question of conducting a survey.”

In his official statement, Warring expressed respect for the Honorable Supreme Court of India but vehemently opposed the order for the Central government to conduct a survey for the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in Punjab. He highlighted the historical significance of Punjab’s water, emphasizing that it has been significantly depleted over the years, even its underground water resources are on the brink of exhaustion, and, therefore, there is no possibility of sharing water with other states.

Warring accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of undermining Punjab’s case in the matter. He alleged that AAP had vested interests in the issue, citing statements made by AAP leaders about delivering water to Haryana during their political campaigns. He criticized AAP for attempting to gain political ground in northern India through the SYL canal issue and accused the Punjab government of presenting a weak case in the Supreme Court.

Highlighting the emotional significance of the SYL canal issue for the people of Punjab, Warring cautioned against playing with the emotions of Punjabis. He warned that escalating this issue could harken back to a dark period in Punjab’s history when the situation was considerably more tense.

Addressing the survey order, Warring pointed out that the Haryana government had already conducted a survey and completed construction on its side because of their water needs. However, he reiterated that Punjab has no surplus water to allocate, making any survey in Punjab unnecessary.

ALSO READ-SC Rebukes Punjab Government Over Delay in SYL Canal Construction

Categories
Food Health Lite Blogs

Ideal beverages for staying hydrated

The real fruit content in smoothies ensures you receive all-natural goodness and nutritional benefits of fruits…reports Asian Lite News

Ready-to-drink Smoothies are the ideal beverage for staying hydrated and healthy while sating hunger pains anytime, anyplace. Here are the top 4 explanations for why smoothies should be your go-to beverage this season out of the numerous available ones:

Bursting with real fruit goodness: Ready-to-drink smoothies are made with real fruit chunks and seeds that enhance the taste and flavour and provide a refreshing burst of natural goodness with every sip.Experience the joy of your taste buds dancing as you indulge in these delightful fruity ready-to-drink smoothies.

Filled with goodness of milk: One of the key ingredients that make these smoothies incredibly nutritious is milk. Smoothies rich in milk provide a creamy and luscious texture while adding a wholesome dose of nourishment. It is a fantastic way to enjoy a refreshing beverage that tantalizes your taste buds and contributes to your well-being.

Rich in taste with the goodness of real Milk:Besides being nutritious, milk also brings in a rich flavour, and when blended into Sunfeast’ssmoothies, milk provides a creamy and luscious texture while adding a wholesome dose of nourishmentIt’s a fantastic way to enjoy a refreshing beverage that tantalizes your taste buds and contributes to your well-being.

Wholesome ingredients for overall well-being: The real fruit content in smoothies ensures you receive all-natural goodness and nutritional benefits of fruits. Packed with essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants, ready-to-drink smoothies contribute tooverall well-being. Some options, like ITC Sunfeast’s Smoothies, even contain chia or basil seeds, which help balance blood sugar and blood pressure levels. Flavours such as Mango, Strawberry, Litchi, and Peach-Pineapple are the smoothie variants available.

Convenience at your fingertips: Given the fast-paced nature of modern lifestyles, it’s understandable why consumers gravitate towards convenient beverage options. Ready-to-drink smoothies are readily available in grocery stores or can be conveniently purchased through e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms, allowing consumers to satisfy their craving for a refreshing drink whenever they desire. Additionally, smoothies’ portable and convenient packaging makes them ideal for on-the-go consumption, whether at work, school, during travel, or while engaging in outdoor activities.

ALSO READ-Pole fitness and positive impact on physical health

Categories
India News Lite Blogs

Troubles mount for residents of Kosi riverbanks  

When the volume of water is low, the pace of its flow increases and causes rapid erosion of the sandy soil…reports Asian Lite News

Monsoon in Bihar is a bundle of paradoxes. While water-induced soil erosion usurps houses in districts with no rains, heavy downpour and resultant floods wreak havoc in other parts of the state. River Kosi, aptly called the ‘Sorrow of Bihar’, is the central character in this vicious weather cycle.

This year, monsoon rains have failed in most parts of the state, with only Araria and Kishanganj districts registering above-normal rainfall. On an average, the state recorded 86 per cent less rainfall in July, which normally is the time of heavy downpour.

Yet, there is no respite from flood-like conditions in areas where it has not rained much. Over 100 houses have been razed since last month in Bela Goth village in Supaul district’s Kishanpur block, as the Kosi’s currents breached embankments. It’s the same situation in Khai Tola and Musaldanga in Nisndara panchayat, Kishanganj district’s Bahadurganj block. Kaharpur and Rangra in Bhagalpur district are equally devastated. In Purnia district’s Amour block, the Parman has breached its banks and entered several homes.

“In the Kosi, erosion increases when the water level is low. It also gets really fast at both the beginning and waning phases of the floods,” says Dr Dinesh Chandra Mishra, an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus who has conducted extensive research on the Kosi and penned several books on the subject.

Charting a new course

Why does the Kosi cause devastating erosion and floods that leave thousands of people homeless? The answer lies in the river’s changing course. A tributary of the Ganga, the Kosi flows in higher altitudes, cutting through the Himalayas. By the time it reaches the low-gradient plains of Bihar, millions of tonnes of silt get deposited in the river. Over the years, as the height of the river bed rose due to silt deposition, the Kosi began to chart new routes.

The river does seem to have a mind of its own! It has a general tendency to change its course in the western direction. When the volume of water is low, the pace of its flow increases and causes rapid erosion of the sandy soil.

Furthermore, the frequent change in the river’s course has changed the soil composition, making the areas along its banks highly prone to erosion. It is estimated that in the past 200 years, the Kosi has changed its direction from east to west in a stretch of 133km.

This one’s perhaps the most unpredictable river in the world. It flowed near Forbesganj and Purnia in 1731, but entered Murliganj by 1892. Again, in 1922, the river charted a new course through Madhepura. In 1936, it began to flow through Saharsa and Darbhanga.

Such deviations from its natural path lead to flooding of residential and agricultural areas, always making the lives of thousands of people miserable. To tame the river, embankments were constructed along its path, which led to silt deposition in the same course all the time. This, in turn, increased the pressure of breach on embankments. By design, such constructions also made it impossible for water from other places to drain into the Kosi.

It’s raining misery

“If measures to prevent erosion are not taken in time, at least 500 families will be rendered homeless,” warns Chandrashekhar, the founder of Gramyasheel, an NGO working for the development of villages along the Kosi embankments.

“Apart from Bela Goth, erosion has intensified in Khokhna Mana Toll, Mozha panchayat and Dubiyahi in Ghogharia panchayat, Kishanpur block. During the floods last year, our team had cited the looming threat of erosion and demanded that measures be taken to prevent it, but in vain,” claims Chandrashekhar, whose NGO was instrumental in relief work during the 2008 Kusaha floods.

Sulochana Devi of Bela Goth blames the state government for the murky situation they were in.

“Only 10 to 12 families have been allotted resettlement land. The rest live in makeshift houses built on roadsides. Initially, authorities provided dry food items. But now, nobody even visits us,” the 37-year-old said.

All the while, the only word of caution from the State Disaster Management Department was in the form of a tweet on June 24, where it listed out measures to protect rural areas from floods. No data on erosion and floods were made available, and it is hardly surprising when considering the fact that the department had, last year, provided the official figures of the flood-affected when the topic had become obsolete for the media.

Farmers hit hard

“It’s monsoon season, yet the fields have developed cracks. Rice plants have turned yellow. We are at the mercy of gods now,” rues Guddu Choudhary of Veena panchayat, where special community pujas for rains were conducted recently.

Bihar is a major producer of paddy, where about 76 per cent of the population is dependent on agriculture. Of its total 79.46 lakh hectares of arable land, rice is cultivated in about 32 lakh hectares, i.e. more than 40 per cent. The state produces about 80 lakh tonnes of paddy annually.

Heat and humidity have taken their toll on the paddy transplantation process. According to Bihar Agriculture Department Secretary N Saravana Kumar, only 15 per cent to 20 per cent planting could be completed in the state so far.

Moreover, the lack of irrigation facilities has compounded the issue.

“Ideally, paddy transplantation should have been completed by now, but fields situated in the upper grounds are not yet covered,” says 38-year-old Mukesh Jha of Chakrami panchayat in Bhagalpur. “In the low-lying areas, pump sets are aiding in the process. When planting is delayed, the crop quality and yield gets affected. Last time, urea shortage hit us hard. We don’t know when Mahadev will show some mercy.”

Ponds and micro-catchment systems along the fields have also dried up in many places. Bablu Paswan, a 54-year-old who has cultivated paddy in seven bighas of land in the same village, says: “The water level has dropped considerably. In some villages, tubewells have dried up. Power supply from the agriculture feeder is also down. Though borewells have been installed under a government scheme, lack of maintenance has rendered them useless.”

Experts speak

Shankar Jha, a scientist at the Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University at Pusa in Samastipur, says climate change has greatly impacted monsoons in Bihar.

“Where it used to rain for 55 to 60 days some five years ago, it rains only for 45 days now. This is what our university’s study report revealed,” he adds.

Another agricultural scientist, Anil Jha says the air quickly absorbs the moisture from the Bay of Bengal. This, along with winds from the east and west, lead to turf formation that triggers rains in the surrounding area.

“As that has not happened so far, the agricultural sector is suffering. If farmers have to stay ahead of the game, they should not shy away from climate-resilient crop diversification,” he stresses.

ALSO READ-Karnataka to expand cabinet by Aug first week

Categories
India News Lite Blogs

Quenching thirst with contaminated water

Arsenic gets entry into the food chain through the use of pollutant-contaminated water for irrigation, and this plays a major role in deciding the agricultural income of this village…reports Sumit Yadav

“The water in our village is just poison. We can’t even cook our food using this water, forget drinking it,” says an exasperated Munni Devi, as she herds her buffaloes by a canal in her village.

Around 70 km from Lucknow, in Unnao district’s Sikanderpur Karan block, is the village of Gudsar. Residents here, like 48-year-old Munni Devi, are simply frustrated e frustrated that the lack of a basic necessity like drinking water can make their lives this miserable.

Harrowed residents resigned to fate

“We are poor people. We cannot afford to buy water. Whenever we have relatives coming over, we have to go fetch water from 2km away. Because of the smelly, polluted and rotten water in our village, relatives have almost stopped visiting us,” says Munni Devi, who lives with her family of eight e three sons and three daughters, and husband Ram Lal who works as a labourer.

Pointing at her buffaloes sitting in the water, she says, “Look at them. No matter how healthy a buffalo is, the water in our village will just make them sick and weak. If an animal won’t drink water properly, how is it supposed to stay healthy?”

Sitting next to her, Anita Devi says the water in their village barely ever quenches thirst.

“When we go outside the village somewhere, we drink lots of water because the water here just feels light,” she says.

Sitting in the veranda of his house, 62-year-old Dayaram Lodhi echoes their sentiments.

“The water never used to be like this,” Lodhi said. “The water started getting contaminated after the canal came up next to our village.”

Picking up a bottle of water, Lodhi adds, “What you see now is crystal clear water. Wait for a while, and this water turns completely yellow. It’s so polluted that even a metal bucket gets completely ruined.”

Lodhi, who has 15 members in his family who consume around 50 to 60 litres of water a day, says the quality of water started turning bad around 20 years ago. Another Gudsar resident Ram Prakash Verma echoes this claim.

“Once this canal came up, things changed. Earlier, the groundwater level wasn’t this bad either.”

As per a report of the State Water Resources Agency, in Uttar Pradesh, a total of 28 districts had a problem of arsenic contamination in groundwater, including Unnao. In March, 2019, Ministry of Drinking Water & Sanitation and Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation had jointly filed an affidavit before NGT. The affidavit highlighted the arsenic affecting a population of 1.3 crores in Uttar Pradesh.

The 58-year-old, who owns roughly 2.5 acres of land, says farming had become increasingly difficult because of the water quality, which had deteriorated primarily due to fluoride and arsenic contamination.

Arsenic gets entry into the food chain through the use of pollutant-contaminated water for irrigation, and this plays a major role in deciding the agricultural income of this village.

“The wheat harvested last year was completely ruined. The level of chemicals in the canal water is so high that any form of vegetation simply dies. Not only is the quality of wheat and rice poor, the yield is also below average. We are forced to sell the harvest at low prices. The contamination has now seeped deep into the groundwater,” he says.

Yogendra Kumar, another resident of Gudsar, shows this reporter a plastic box.

“Because of the water here, the box has turned red. You can only imagine what the water could do to the human body,” says the 24-year-old, adding that there’s a good possibility that at least one or two members of each family in the village of 400 has some form of stone disease. “The pollution in the water here has only increased the occurrence of diseases among residents. Most people just stay sick after falling ill.”

Non-functional hand pumps

Criticising the inaction by authorities with regard to tackling this water crisis, Kumar says: “Whenever we complained to any authority, we only received false promises. There are around 15 high-quality hand pumps in the village, but none of them work. The water drawn from traditional hand pumps is simply awful. The RO plant set up here three years ago worked for first six months and then didn’t give one drop of water.”

Village pradhan Amresh Kumar, too, spoke about the RO plant: “Since it was a plant set up by the Uttar Pradesh government, the panchayat had no funds for it.”

In rural areas, the India-Mark hand pumps are supposed to be rebored. “But no such repair or reboring work has been done on the hand pumps,” says Amresh Kumar, adding that he was given charge of the village only recently.

For daily drinking purposes, residents of Gudsar rely on the hand pumps, which give out highly contaminated water. But villagers now say they are getting used to it.

“Who can afford to get tanker water every day? One can arrange for tankers for weddings and other functions, but for daily use, hand pumps are all we have,” says a villager.

Fluoride, arsenic contamination

Dr Alok Pandey, the physician at the Unnao district hospital said that the level of fluoride in water must not exceed 1.5mg/litre, while that of arsenic shouldn’t exceed 0.05mg/litre.

“If the fluoride level exceeds the permissible limit, it can prove fatal. Excess fluoride can lead to misshapen arms and legs, can cause weakness, fever and can also lead to various stomach and dental ailments,” he explains.

Incidentally, the arsenic level in Unnao district exceeds the 0.05mg/litre limit, as per National Green Tribunal (NGT) data. In July, 2014 a sample testing run by Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, identified 20 districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Unnao as ‘severely toxic’ zones, based on the arsenic concentration in groundwater.

Mohit Chak, the superintendent engineer of the Unnao water department, says there are 53,816 hand pumps in Unnao, which has a population of over 25.7 lakh. In Sikanderpur Karan block, 26 RO plants were set up.

Asked about the condition of the RO plants in Sikanderpur Karan, Chak claims he did not have any knowledge regarding their non-functioning.

“Once I get information, work to get them repaired will be initiated,” he says, adding that of the 319 villages in the block, 76 were affected by excess fluoride.

“As many as 1,455 of the 4,355 villages in Unnao face issues related to excess fluoride in the water. Of these, 28 villages face TDS (total dissolved solids) pollution.”

Regarding provision of pure drinking water, the superintendent engineer said that the tender process for the central government’s Jal Jeevan Mission had yet to begin at the block level. The scheme aims to provide drinking water directly to every household by 2024, and Chak says the results of the scheme will start to show. However, keeping in view the serious health consequences, NGT in the order dated 28.01.2020 had set a deadline for completion of total remedial work by December, 2020.

As far as the Jal Jeevan Mission tender process is concerned, the official says it will be done by July and work for the same will begin thereafter.

Tanneries to blame

Local residents blame the various tanneries in the region for the contamination of the water. They insist that these tanneries, located in the industrial areas of Sikanderpur Karan block’s Banther, release chemicals in massive quantities into the canals near the villages. The water in these canals seep into the groundwater, further contaminating that, as well.

Rituraj Sahu, the managing director of the CETP (common effluent treatment plant) that filters contaminated water discharged by factories in the industrial area, says there are several factories and tanneries that release chemicals into nearby water bodies. To filter the chemical-laden water, Sahu says the CETP has a capacity of around 4.5 MLD (million litres per day).

“Currently, the plant filters around 1.5 MLD of contaminated water. None of it is released into the nearby canals of Banther,” Sahu claims.

However, as per a report of the Central Pollution Control Board, 35.42 MLD of contaminated water is released into this canal.

The NGT, too, had questioned the Uttar Pradesh government about “inadequate” progress in provision of drinking water.

Nevertheless, the situation on ground remains poor for villagers. People still have to fetch drinking water from over 2km away.

“The situation has now become such that people are refusing to get their daughters married to anyone from our village,” rued one villager.

ALSO READ-Water crisis all set to hit Pakistan

Categories
-Top News India News

Third Pole faces worsening water imbalance

The Third Pole, which includes the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges, is known as the “Asian water tower”…reports Asian Lite News

Rapid global warming has worsened the water imbalance for almost 2 billion people in the Third Pole region — including India, Bangladesh and Nepal — where about 90 per cent of water is used for irrigation, a new study has warned.

This will lead to greater water demand in densely populated downstream countries, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

The Third Pole, which includes the Tibetan Plateau and the surrounding Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges, is known as the “Asian water tower”.

With the largest global store of frozen water after the Antarctic and Arctic, the Third Pole region, located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is home to headwaters of over 10 major Asian rivers.

The “Asian Water Tower” region has gotten out of balance between solid water in glaciers and liquid water in lakes and rivers under the global climate change impact, reports Xinhua news agency.

The rise in temperatures with changes in the westerlies and the Indian monsoon led to glacier retreat and more precipitation in the region’s northern part and less in the southern.

The spatial imbalance will alleviate water scarcity in the Yellow and Yangtze River basins while increasing scarcity in the further-south Indus basins, the study said.

“Such imbalance will likely pose a great challenge to the supply-demand balancing of water resources in downstream regions,” said Yao Tandong, lead author of the study and an academician at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The highest water demand is projected to be in the Indus basin, said Walter Immerzeel, co-author of the study and a researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

He stressed that this demand would affect irrigation, accounting for more than 90 per cent of water use across the area.

“Since this north-south disparity is expected to be amplified by climate warming in the future, adaptation policies for sustainable water resource management are greatly needed in downstream countries,” said co-author Piao Shilong, also a researcher at Peking University.

The scientists said they still need more information to help the public respond to the changes, such as comprehensive monitoring stations in data-scarce areas.

They also call for collaboration between upstream and downstream countries.

Meanwhile, two recent studies have thrown more light on the condition of the glaciers across Himalayas and also those from the Trans-Himalayan region of Ladakh. Although the thinning, melting, and receding of glaciers have been known for quite some time now, every new study comes as an alarm for humanity.

In their latest published study, a bunch of researchers have studied the Pangong Tso region of Ladakh and ascertained the area changes and frontal retreat of 87 glaciers between 1990 and 2019 using satellite data. Besides, the glacier outlines were delineated manually and compared with existing regional and global glacier inventories that are available over the region.

ALSO READ-Urgent steps must be taken to save world’s third pole

Categories
Books Environment Lite Blogs

‘Watershed’: An effort to correct ‘imbalance’

She also noted that “as the climate heats up, it is likely that swathes of land will be submerged, water-related extremes will re-shape industry and famine will revisit the country.” (The first signs of this, in fact, are already visible.)…writes Vishnu Makhijani.

Mridula Ramesh, a leading clean-tech angel investor with a portfolio of over 15 startups and who is involved in multiple initiatives to build climate entrepreneurship, ran out of water at her Madurai home in 2013.

In trying to find out why that happened and what could be done about it, her first book, “The Climate Solution” and entry into the world of climate happened — only to realise that people speaking about climate change speak almost exclusively of carbon, while the climate itself speaks in the language of water.

“For India, arguably one of the most vulnerable countries to the changing climate, water needs its share of the conversation,” and her new book, “Watershed” (Hachette India), “is an effort to correct that imbalance” because “we have crossed certain climate thresholds, and need to address water to lessen the pain that Indians are feeling in this changed climate”, Mridula told.

More worrisome, the changing climate and water cycle “is highlighting inequalities — such as those between rich and poor within a given city and between the developed and developing world. Storms, flooding and drought affect the poor more than the rich,” she added.

Moreover, looking at this through a climate justice angle, “we find that adaptation (a large part of which is managing water) is getting a far less conversation-share and lower share of financing than mitigation, even though developing countries have contributed far less to the cumulative GHG emissions that have caused this global warming. This lower priority only serves to increase existing inequalities,” Mridula explained.

She also noted that “as the climate heats up, it is likely that swathes of land will be submerged, water-related extremes will re-shape industry and famine will revisit the country.” (The first signs of this, in fact, are already visible.)

“Sea-level rise and stronger storms and stronger storm surges will result in parts of the country being underwater for at least some time each year in the future. Many industries came up in the belief that water is endless and cheap — climate change is challenging both of those beliefs. For example, sectors like thermal power plants in dry regions may find the going far less profitable, and may need to relocate or shutdown.

“On famine, we have gone from a nation of 220 million eating largely millets to a nation of 1.3 billion eating rice and wheat. The price for this transformation has been paid largely from the groundwater reserved of the dry northwest. In 2019, a state committee had opined that Punjab may run out of groundwater in 20-25 years. What will happen if an El Nino hits after that? That’s what the plausible fictional scenario in Chapter 24 tries to portray � what can happen if all these come to pass in the near future,” Mridula cautioned.

To this end, the book provides a five-point checklist of action:

Acknowledge water — don’t take it for granted and see how India’s water is special. Acknowledge that we are the best keepers of our water resilience. Act with data and act now — begin by preparing a water balance sheet — where is it coming from and where is it going. Version 1.0 of this may not be perfect, but try every day to go a little further. The same holds true for a person, a community, a factory, a city, a state or a country.

Protect the forces that soothe India’s volatile and variable waters — this includes forests, tanks and sewage treatment. In doing so, keep in mind the importance of cash flow — something may be very valuable and provide a great water-smoothening service, but if it does not generate cash flow, it becomes vulnerable in our economic world.

Customers should recognise that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Ask your favourite brands to be conscious of their carbon/waste/water footprint, and ensure their entire supply chain is fairly compensated for respecting the environment.

Let us recognise the power of decentralised policy — water pricing at the level of a city, mandating distributed farmgate storage in a district or sensitising bulk generators of waste/sewage, tank tourism — can generate a wave of innovation that can bring the jobs India needs while building climate resilience.

We really are close to the abyss, and yet, most of our voters appear not to vote on managing our shared resources. This needs to change if we want meaningful policy action.

Considerable research has gone into the book, with the studies conducted by the Madurai-based Sundaram Climate Institute forming one of its core pillars.

“We have spoken to over 2,000 households on their waste and water realities apart from studying the communities and impact of 100 tanks. Then there was the historical research — many of which involved interviews, site visits and perusal of primary sources such as letters or writings of colonial officials. Then there was the peer-reviewed literature from archaeologists, geologists, chemists, hydrologists, climatologists, medical doctors, and historians,” Mridula elaborated.

There were extensive interviews and conversations with a varied spectrum of people, from India’s ‘Water Man’ Rajendra Singh, to the many startups trying to build water resilience, to scientists, business people, activists, bureaucrats and politicians. And finally the investment process in startups.

How does India compare with the rest of the world � with the US, Africa, and Europe?

“In terms of climate and water vulnerabilities, India ranks high — very high — because of its population, its relative financial position, the large share of rainfed farms in agriculture and its long coastline. Also important to note is that the Indian Ocean has warmed faster than the other oceans in the world, leading to more powerful storms,” Mridula said.

Speaking about her experience with her net-zero-waste home and how this can be replicated at the micro and macro levels, she said: “Before we did anything we collected data, what we wasted, who, why, how. Over time, patterns emerged and we began seeing what the biggest areas of waste were — so we brought the amount of ‘generated waste’ down.”

“Second, we began to see how much of the ‘waste’ we could reuse — that is re-imagination, how to see ‘waste’ as a ‘resource’ — that was the killer step. We make compost and biogas, which keeps the garden healthy and the costs down. We also bring in waste from outside — flower waste and cow dung — to help with the compost and biogas.

“We have had our successes and failures, but what has kept us going is the focus on data, and emphasis on making any action as easy to follow as possible,” Mriduala concluded.

ALSO READ-‘A Doctor’s Memoir of a Deadly Medical Crisis’