Varanasi: Hundreds of tonnes of flowers offered at Kashi Vishwanath temple (KVT) and Sankat Mochan in city and Maa Vindhyavasini temple in Mirzapur district would no longer go into refuse. The floral wastes will now be collected from temple premises and converted into organic waste via treatment plants, courtesy joint initiative of Coal India Limited and The Art of Living.
Under corporate social responsibility (CSR), Coal India Limited (CIL) and The Art of Living (AOL) will set up as many as three waste treatment plants to convert flowers into organic manure that can be used in gardening and in fields.
Talking to reporters on Wednesday here, general manager, CIL, Siddhnath Singh and AOL trustee, Rakesh Tandon said that flowers and plants offered at Kashi Vishwanath temple (KVT), Sankat Mochan and Maa Vindhyavasini temple will be collected on a regular interval, decomposed and converted into manure through the waste treatment plants to be set up in premises of Goenka hostel in Lalita ghat, Sankat Mochan temple and Vindhyavasini temple in Vindhyachal Dham, as a part of waste management project. They also met Mahanth of Sankat Mochan, Prof. Vishwambharnath Mishra.
They informed that the plant could not be set up in premises of KVT owing to lack of space and hence would come up in Goenka hostel at Lalita ghat. After a no-objection certificate from the temple, the process of collection of wastes and its transportation would be initiated, they said.
Tandon said that when PM Narendra Modi was apprised of the project by AOL founder and spiritual leader Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, PM expressed his delight and suggested to set up 30 such plants in his parliamentary constituency. They said that the plants would be set up by next month. The plant converts and processes about 200-400 kg floral wastes at one go and the first lot takes about 11 days unlike the longer period of 60 days (without the machine). About 80% organic matter is decomposed and converted into manure. Similar plants are up and running at Tarapeeth and Dakshineswar Kali temple in West Bengal and another is due to be set up in Kamakhya temple in Guwahati.
Singh also informed that they had collaborated with Inner Voice Foundation under CSR to check arsenic poisoning in three districts including Varanasi, Ballia and Ghazipur. As a part of this, concentration of arsenic in ground water will be tested in five villages of each of the three district, he informed.
Courtesy: The Times of India
