The Hindu : Mela Thattapparai becoming a `model panchayat'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Tuticorin

Mela Thattapparai becoming a `model panchayat'

By P. Sudhakar

TUTICORIN, MARCH 15. The Mela Thattapparai panchayat, 15 km from here, is becoming a `model panchayat' in the district, implementing all government schemes with attractive subsidies, including solid waste management through bio-manure preparation, power generation with human-waste, gasifier unit, installation of solar street lights for an Adi Dravida Colony, construction of separate sanitary complexes for men and women etc.

Farmers in the panchayat are using animal waste directly in their rain-fed land whenever farming activities pick up.

When the panchayat administration started collecting biodegradable and plastic wastes in a specially designed cart from 600-odd houses, it really created interest among the public.

The plastic and iron waste in the garbage is segregated before the biodegradable waste is added with earthworms, kept in four compartments. The panchayat administration has constructed a separate building to harvest bio-manure at an interval of every 45 days. The plastic and iron waste is sold separately to give small revenue for the panchayat.

Adjacent to this bio-manure manufacturing section, a sanitary complex for members of men self-help groups has been constructed. The septic tank of the complex has been connected with a huge tank with a capacity of 10-cubic metre, where fresh cow dung mix is poured everyday to catalyse the production of gas inside the tank.

The biogas produced in this tank is used to operate a 1.5 HP motor to pump water to the overhead tank atop the sanitary complex.

Another feather in the cap of the Mela Thattapparai panchayat is the novel gasifier unit, using small pieces of abundantly available firewood in the region as `fuel' to generate 4-KWA electricity.

"We use women SHG members here to cut freely available firewood with 15 per cent moisture content into small pieces and they get 30 paise per kg. The power generated in the unit is used to operate 3 HP motor pump water from a deep borewell to the ground-level water tank. Since the borewell has been sunk so close to the village tank, we expect an uninterrupted water supply even during the summer," said the Block Development Officer of the Tuticorin union, Charles Devadoss Walker.

The Dalit colony in the northern end of the village has been provided with five solar streetlights with automatic switching facility.

"Besides providing them free pattas, we have also constructed these houses for them with the considerable subsidy from the Central and State Governments. The beneficiaries just provided the manpower for the construction of their houses," said C. Sundararaj, president of the `model panchayat.'

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Mela Thattapparai becoming a `model panchayat'