MAHAKUMBH OF ENVIRONMENT LESSONS FOR AGES

Mahakumbh 2025 began at Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj on Monday, it will be remembered for a longtime as a very special event by all means. It will be remembered not just for its grand gala colours, the numbers of pilgrims or tents, the crowd management, the stakeholder engagement, number and variety of event and many more visible arrangements made by Government, Social and Religious Groups and Community at large; but also for the attempt towards making it a Zero Waste event is just beyond imagination. The biggest conglomerate on the Earth, with expected footfall of 500 Million pilgrims will go on for the longest duration of 45 days. It will witness innovative, illustrious, impactful initiatives to become learning lessons for the generations to come. Some have attributed it as a comprehensive book on management, some consider it as manual to ensure safety and security of a city, entire planning including resource mobilisation and logistics will be a matter of academic degrees or thesis for the scholars. The micro management of can become a multidisciplinary full time academic course in itself. A New City is being created altogether to host the gigantic religious event along the banks of Triveni Sangam i.e. Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. This Mahakumbh being organised under leadership of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will be leaving its imprints of sustainable management for practitioners, policymakers and people at large.

When a city is created and such mammoth gathering takes place, the biggest worry to the organisers or administrators remains maintaining Public Health. It is not limited to pilgrims but also to the people living in surroundings. Causes of concern to maintain public health are mostly related to Water, Sanitation and Waste. This time the Mahakumbh administration has focussed on addressing these issues with detailed micro planning and appropriate solutions. It appears with the kind of arrangements made that Sanitation, Cleanliness, Waste Management are of utmost importance to the Mela Administration. Mahakumbh is being held for the time immortal but the shape it has taken since the year 2019 has attracted global interest and keenness of every individual to participate. With change in government at centre under leadership of PM Narendra Modi, organisation of events like Mahakumbh with a sustainable development approach has gained importance. Cleanliness and workers engaged to enable the same have been getting due recognition since 2014. Just to recall, on 25 February 2019, the entire world was amazed to see PM Modi passionately washing feet of Sanitation Workers during Kumbh of 2019. It was an unbelievable gesture by any Head of Nation in history. Entire country was overwhelmed with this act of Narendra Modi. That in itself speaks volumes about the significance of cleanliness to the governance agenda. Some opposition leaders criticised the gesture showered upon by the Prime Minister as just a PhotoOp only but did they or their party ever dare to do so in their public life puts a big question mark on the statements outrightly rejected by people. Message of keeping them at highest esteem was conveyed loud and clear through washing feet by the Prime Minister. Tears of gratitude were witnessed in the eyes of people to acknowledge gestures extended to sanitation workers. This particular act of the Prime Minister has brought attitudinal change amongst citizens. The entire world is struggling with issues like marine litter and discharges in water bodies including the ocean. This Mahakumbh has set an aim to ensure Zero Discharge to the holy rivers. Infrastructure created or rejuvenated for the world’s largest gathering includes setting up of Temporary and enhancing capacity of existing sewage treatment plants besides putting in place a system for safe disposal of both liquid and solid waste during the 45 days long festival. Mahakumbh-2025 aims for zero waste with 'One Bag, One Thali' initiative, distributing steel plates and cloth bags to promote cleanliness and environmental care. Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has taken initiative to distribute a Steel Plate and a Cloth Bag to every visitor to avoid waste generation significantly. In RSS, a campaign has been taken up to reach out to the maximum number of people across the country to collect cloth bags and steel plates for Maha Kumbh pilgrims. ‘One Bag-One Thali’ campaign is being run across India by the volunteers of RSS. Volunteers from different cities and villages have collected one bag and one steel plate from people and sent it to Prayagraj, which is now being distributed in all the camps in the tent city.

Collected items shall also be distributed free of cost through counters made in the Kumbh area. Collection and distribution have served many purposes. Strong messages through these massive initiatives are: One to avoid use of disposable plastic, Two to keep everything in bags, Three not to use any kind of Single Use Plastic, Four Reuse everything. This initiative in itself will avoid generation of approximately One Lakh Metric Tonnes of Waste equivalent to 6 to 8 months waste generation of host city Prayagraj. On return, these items taken back home by visitors shall keep reminding cleanliness lessons learnt. Besides this, Bhandaras, Tents, Annakshetra and Akhadas are also provided with Steel Plates and Steel Glasses to serve food and water so as to avoid any kind of plastic usage. The volunteers are appealing to pilgrims to take a pledge of cleanliness and adopt it in their life. Pilgrims and saints are urged to keep cloth bag handy so that use of polythene bags can be rooted out. They are being motivated to take a dip in holy waters instead of bathing in it using soap, shampoo & oil etc.

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY THE AUTHOR ARE PERSONAL

Dr Vivek S Agrawal, The writer is a specialist on Urban Health and Environment