Give tree sapling to guests during official functions — MAHUD

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Aug. 7 (EMN): The Municipal Administration Housing and Urban Development (MAHUD) have initiated to give tree saplings to the guests during its official functions in place of giving artificial badges and usual ‘lengyan-phee,’ a kind of traditional stole made in Manipur.
This was disclosed by the MAHUD Director Th Harikumar Singh while sharing the initiatives taken up by his department during a brainstorming session on rejuvenation of the dying springs and ground water sources in the state held recently.

“We’ve also stopped using the bottled water during official functions,” Director Harikumar who is taking up necessary efforts to transform the municipal solid waste management in the region by inviting the concerned parties and providing training to the needy stakeholders. “We’re also encouraging the plantation and managing dump site systematically.”

Thus, MAHUD becomes the second department in Manipur to stop using bottled water during its official functions after the Directorate of Environment in the environmentally volatile state.

Harikumar also informed the gathering which was attended by officials of various departments, researchers, community based workers, and media persons that the state’s building by laws has also been amended in the recently in a move to focus on regional level support and strengthen the objectives of the global initiatives on sustainable buildings.

The department also plans to start segregation of municipal solid waste at source (the household level) through the urban local bodies. At least dry and wet wastes for the initial stage, he added.

The move is to enhance the implementation of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules 2016. There are around 27 urban local bodies in Manipur and authorities are planning to construct nearly 46,000 houses under housing for all schemes in the first phase.

“Of course under the recently introduced Jan Shakti Abhiyan (Water Conservation Campaign), we will also look into the integration of the rooftop rainwater harvesting in the next phase of housing for all scheme implementation if there’s any provision,” he said while responding to a question.

Water conservation initiatives are being executed across the country under the campaign which was launched on July 1 under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti formed by merging – Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in May.

The campaign focuses on water conservation and rain water harvesting, renovation of traditional and other water bodies, re-use of water and recharging structures, watershed development and intensive a forestation.