Kashi credits Temsutula Imsong, not its municipal body, for clean ghats

November 26, 2017 266 Views No Comment

Meet Temsutula Imsong – a lady who is fueling life in old and dirty Ghats of Varanasi

In 2013, Temsutula Imsong moved to Varanasi and

with a group of friends completely changed the look of several ghats along the Ganga. Imsong, who is from Nagaland, worked for days with her colleagues from NGO Sakaar, to manually clean the ghats that were full of garbage and excreta.

Her work was even acknowledged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Now, when most ghats are being looked after by the municipal corporation and are much cleaner than they were just two years ago, those who have seen Imsong and her team work give them the credit for having made people conscious of their responsibility.

“One day, these boys and girls appeared and started cleaning the ghats. They met so much resistance from local people but they persisted. We remember this girl, especially, since she looked different from the rest. We were told that she is from Nagaland. People who live in Benares did not care about the ghats so it really warmed our hearts to see people from other cities clean them,” said Babua at the Babua Pandey Ghat.

Boatman Gunjan, whose boat is anchored near the ghat, remembers the Sakaar team too well.

“We had never seen the ghats so clean. People would not even walk by earlier, let alone sit here. Now it is so clean that people come and sit around. It is easier for us to find customers as well,” he said.

Imsong did a course in solid waste management in 2016 and conducted workshops with students from one public school and one private school.

“Now that the corporation has taken over cleaning of ghats, I have moved on to other things. I conducted a workshop with students from class 6 to 12 in two schools and taught them about waste generation and recycling. I am also compiling a list of those who are composting at home and within a year, hope to have at least 2,000 such families. In these three years in Benaras, I have seen massive changes. Door-to-door collection of waste and segregation at source has also started. There have been many positive changes in Benaras since 2014,” said Imsong.

Source: Times of India