ITANAGAR, Oct 1: To mark the concluding day of the fortnight long cleanliness programme Swachhta Pakhwada 2018, the Dept of Tourism in collaboration with Further and Beyond Foundation successfully conducted an event at Thembang heritage village, West Kameng district under the auspices of Thembang zero-waste heritage initiative on Sunday.
Toko Babu , ADC, Dirang graced the occasion as the chief guest. The event was also attended by    Bengia Manna Sonam, Assistant Director, Dept of Tourism, Govt officials, tour operators of West Kameng district, panchayat members, school students and others.
The event started with a photo exhibition featured by Ankit Ranjan Pathak in the village community hall. Later, T W Thongdok, District Tourism Officer, welcomed and addressed the gathering giving a brief account of Thembang as heritage village, an initiative of tourism dept in making it a zero waste heritage village. 

.Bengia Manna Sonam highlighted the initiatives taken by the dept. of tourism in promoting Thembang as a heritage village and its constant endeavour in making it a zero waste heritage village involving community based initiative. She further exhorted the village community to adopt a sense of belongingness and take active role in community participation in order to sustain the culture of cleanliness.
While appreciating the developments taking place in Thembang,  the ADC also emphasized the importance of community involvement in the promotion of tourism. He further assured the villagers of his support towards the mission.
A power point presentation was presented by Merwyn Coutinho, co-founder of Further and Beyond Foundation wherein he explained the community based waste management model which proposes to create an efficient integrated solid waste management solution for Thembang village. 
While highlighting the mission and vision for Thembang Heritage village, he also gave a detailed account of the role and responsibilities for Thembang waste management committee. 
During the programme the newly constructed Material Recovery Facility was inaugurated by the chief guest and dossiers were handed over to the village waste management committee.
Later, Dustbins by the Dept of PHED, West Kameng were distributed to the village community.
Saplings were also distributed by the Dept of Tourism. The programme ended with heritage walk of the Historical Thembang Village.
It may be noted that an initial assessment of the village was done on March 9, under the community based tourism programme under the leadership of Merwyn Coutinho to conduct a baseline survey for the waste situation in Thembang.
Post the baseline survey, a detailed report was charted to chalk out the next plan for making Thembang a community run zero waste village. Subsequently, a community based waste management model was formulated. 
A waste management workshop was conducted on segregation and disposal of organic and inorganic waste, followed by a clean-up drive engaging the community.
Two color coded Dustbins were handed out in each home to segregate and dispose the waste respectively.
A core team for the waste management, and a waste collector was identified among the community.
The team was taken for an exposure trip to the cleanest village Mawlynnong in Meghalaya and ecological farming training program in Sonapur in Assam on composting to boost and motivate the committee members to implement the same methods in the village. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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