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Mewalal

Mewalal

Field of Activity: Social Work, Agriculture, Solid Waste Management

Mewa Lal is a farmer in Uttar Pradesh who strongly believes that nature's way is generally the best. He has gone ahead to prove it. Mewa Lal had seen his elders produce fertilizer for use by composting natural products such as leaves, waste wood, shrubs and other biodegradable waste. He wanted to enhance the efficacy of this. After much experimentation, Mewa Lal developed a formula for a natural liquid fertilizer. With it, refuse gets converted into a fluid bacterial culture, or “Black Alcohal”, as it is popularly referred to. Once trials over repeated harvest seasons confirmed its efficacy, many came forward to make the switch from chemical to natural liquid fertilizers. Mewa Lal widely distributed 4,897 liters of natural liquid fertilizer free of cost to farmers, resulting in 121 hectares of land coming under improved land quality. In one village alone (Lilauli), this has replaced 1,500 tons of chemical fertilizers that also led to a 30% improvement in productivity. Mewa Lal next turned his attention to developing natural pesticides. He used mixture of Neem (Azadirachta indica) and Dhatura (Dhatura stramonium), with other natural products to produce these. Mewa Lal employs a Train-the-Trainer model. In each village, he trains five farmers who in turn train others. A major impet us to his work has come by the state government allowing the production of natural liquid fertilizer and natural pesticides to come under the mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The benefits to earth and its inhabitants with the reduced use of chemicals goes without saying.

What strikes one first on meeting Mewa Lal is his humility. His successes in developing methods to manage the increasing waste we human generate are now widely hailed. State Government and Municipal corporations send their officials to consult with him. Ayodhya, Jhansi, Shikohabad, Shaharanpur, Ghaziabad and many more cities have established units for Solid Waste Management. He is very conscious of the plight of rag pickers and others connected to the system and ensure that these people also benefit from the systems he sets up.

He is Founder of Lucknow based NGO is called Muskan Jyoti Samiti (MJS), MJS is a NGO which has been successfully providing comprehensive solid waste management service to a part of the city since 1994. Its operations include street cleaning, garbage collection, sorting, transportation, disposal and composting with innovative technology. It recovers the operation and maintenance cost from the households served. This field note profiles the work of MJS in many Urban Local Bodies. Mewa Lal has developed a concept named SWASTI for municipal solid waste management that includes waste collection at source and safe disposal of waste through low cost transformation of biodegradable waste into organic manure. The work of organization has been appraised by several national and international organization includes agencies like DFID and South Asia Environment and Social sector of World Bank reported it in Uttar Pradesh Environment Report 2003.

After many years of working as the Secretary of the Muskan Jyoti Samiti, Mewa Lal was distressed by the working conditions of the cleaners and waste collectors he came across. One day he realized that he could address both the issues that worried him: (i) the plight of the cleaners and waste collectors; and (ii) the garbage that piled up all around the city. He also realized that these problems could not be solved by the existing municipal system, and, therefore, decided to form an NGO to take up the task of efficient garbage collection and disposal. Success did not come easily to him. But with his vision, dedication, entrepreneurship and drive, Mewa Lal has now achieved what seemed an impossible goal when he started.

Getting the community’s agreement to participate is a crucial part of the MJS’s waste collection and disposal program. When a residential locality is approached for the first time, MJS community mobilizers go from house-to-house, informing the residents about MJS, creating awareness about SWM, and requesting them to pay for garbage collection. After the awareness-building exercise, the residents who are willing to participate in the program sign an MJS form. When a minimum of 150 forms have been signed in a particular locality, MJS begins its operation. During the initial two month period, the community mobilizers also advise residents to store garbage at their homes in plastic bins or bags which can be emptied directly into the MJS handcarts. Solid waste collection is free for the first 2 months. Monthly charges are levied only in the third month, after residents have benefited from the door-to-door collection of garbage, as well as improvement in the cleanliness of their surroundings. According to the MJS founder, Mewalal, about 80 per cent of the residents pay the monthly collection charge after the first 2 months of free service. Community mobilizers go around to the remaining households to inquire why they have not paid and try to persuade them to contribute and participate in the program. At times, peer pressure from other residents in the locality helps in making the defaulting households pay the monthly rate.

In the year 1997, An Initial investment of Rs. 25,000 from the personal savings of Mewalal was made by MJS for its waste collection and disposal program in Lucknow. MJS had a loss of Rs. 17,000 in the first year, but the situation improved when it secured Government support, expanded its operations, and improved the operation and maintenance (O&M) cost recovery from the households served. In the 5 years since the SWM operations started, MJS has not only recovered its initial losses but, in 1998-99, was also able to make an investment of Rs. 1.2 million in the vermi-composting unit from the surplus generated through the solid waste operations in the city. MJS has purchased 1 tractor trolley from its own savings. MJS has also been able to secure bank loans to buy 100 cycle trolleys in the name of individual trolley operators. This turnaround would not have been possible for MJS without the land, capital and equipment provided by the State Government. The Uttar Pradesh Bhumi Sudhar Nigam (State Land Development Corporation) alloted 65 acres of land free of cost. The State Urban Development Authority (SUDA) gave them a grant of Rs. 124,000 for preparation of the vermi-composting beds and pits, plus 100 cycle trolleys worth Rs. 300,000 at current prices. The Lucknow District Urban Development Authority (DUDA) gave 4 tractor trolleys with a price tag of Rs. 236,000 each, plus 200 hand carts priced at Rs. 1,000 each. Interestingly, MJS has not been able to get any support from the Lucknow Municipal Corporation, the organization responsible for garbage disposal in the city. MJS has been requesting the city Government to either give them land and capital, or 200 square feet covered sheds per 500 households for storing the garbage bags, hand carts and trolleys within the locality where they are working. This demand has not been met as yet by the Municipal Corporation. The average monthly O&M cost for the waste collection and disposal is presently Rs. 20 per household. MJS charges monthly waste collection rates ranging from Rs. 10 to Rs. 25 per household, depending on the ability to pay. The lower-income households benefit from a cross-subsidy from the higher income households.

The annual collection from the households has risen 24-fold since MJS started operations, from Rs. 180,000 in 1994-95 to Rs. 4,320,000 in 1998-99. Income from the sale of inorganic materials recovered from the collected waste has also been rising rapidly, reaching Rs. 660,000 in 1998-99 from Rs. 45,000 in 1995-96. There was no income from the sale of inorganic materials in 1994-95. Further, income from the sale of compost started accruing to MJS only in the year 1999. The total annual revenue receipts of MJS from solid waste collection and disposal in Lucknow, including income from household collections and sales. The bulk of the MJS’s expenditure in SWM is on salaries paid to the increasing number of workers. MJS almost continuously recruits new ragpickers, waste collectors, trolley operators, supervisors and community mobilizers as their service network expands. A waste collector is paid between Rs. 1,200 and Rs. 1,500 a month, while a supervisor gets

Rs. 2,000 per month. Waste collectors and trolley operators are also allowed to seek other day-time jobs after finishing their morning’s work. Rag-pickers are paid Rs. 1,000 per month. Although expenditure on staff salaries, vehicle maintenance, fuel and garbage bags has been rising over time, MJS has managed to keep its costs lower than the income. On an average, 85-90 per cent of the revenue is utilized to meet the cost of operations, while 10-15 per cent is the MJS’s margin for assorted expenses and rolling capital for new equipment and expansion of its solid waste operations. It must, however, be emphasized that MJS would not be able to show a surplus of revenue over costs if it had to make all the initial capital investment in land and equipment without receiving significant support from the Government.

MJS workers collect waste 6 days a week. In the housing colonies served by MJS, they go from house-to house in the morning, collecting the unsorted waste. The waste is transported by a hand cart to a cycle trolley where the primary sorting of organic and inorganic waste is carried out. The two large bags of sorted waste are then removed by the cycle trolley operator. The streets in these localities are swept once a week.

By about 11.00 a.m., the cycle trolley operators take the waste to a central point where MJS rag-pickers sift saleable material from the collected waste. The remaining waste is picked up from these central points by tractor trolleys and taken either to the landfill, or to the composting site in Rasoolpur Kayasth outside Lucknow city. The last tractor trolley comes into the composting site at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Once regular operations start, MJS supervisors are appointed to cover specific areas to ensure that weekly street cleaning and daily waste collection is done properly. They keep a record of payments made by the households. They also attend to the residents’ complaints about irregular collection or accumulated waste in the nearby parks and streets.

About 10 tons of garbage is collected every day by MJS from the residential localities and wholesale vegetable and fruit markets. Approximately 40 per cent of the waste is inorganic material, such as cardboard, paper, plastic, rubber, leather, textiles, metal, glass and bricks. Half of the inorganic waste, such as metal, glass, plastic and paper, is recovered by the rag-pickers for resale by MJS while the remaining waste, mainly ash and soil, is sent to the landfill site outside the city. The 6 tons of organic waste collected daily consists of waste from plants, fruits and vegetables, hay and cow dung. About 3 tons of organic waste is collected from the households and 2 tons is picked up free of cost from the wholesale vegetable and fruit markets. Cow dung is purchased by MJS from private dairies in the city whenever required. The organic waste collected is used to make compost and liquid fertilizer in the MJS’s vermi-composting unit. The MJS vermi-composting unit was set up with the assistance of the Institute of Research in Soil Biology and Biotechnology, located in Chennai. The Institute has also posted 2 of its scientists at the site in Lucknow to supervise the compost production process, and to conduct agricultural research using vermi-compost. Two types of fertilizers are produced at the MJS vermi-composting unit:

1.       Dry compost, produced outdoors in pits.

2.       Liquid fertilizer, which is produced indoors in steel drums.

Both of these processes use the same organic waste as inputs but in different proportions.

His innovative Drum Technology for fastest decomposting of organic waste is adopted by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Kanpur) and IIT (Indian School of Mining) Dhanbad.

A truly remarkable man of the soil.

Acheivement

1.      Only NGO Member, Uttar Pradesh, Plastic Waste Management Committee

2.      Emplaned Agency by Urban Development Department of Uttar Pradesh

3.      Done Digital Maps for more than 100 wards

Awards: State

1.    Ganga Sewak Samman Allahabad

2.    CM Samman Patra, Namami Ganga

3.    Conversion Letter for MNREGA for Drum Decomposting

4.   Best Innovation at Plastic Workshop Lucknow  

International

1.      Earthday Network Star August 2018 on Agro Waste Management