Waste management training for Dharamsala prisoners

Dharamsala, November 27

A waste management model has been launched in the correctional home of the Dharamsala jail. The model aims at training inmates in handling waste as a way of entrepreneurship.

Satwant Atwal, ADGP, Prisons, yesterday inaugurated the ‘Waste Under Arrest’ (Waste Management Model) at Lala Lajpat Rai District Correctional Home here. He claimed that this was one-of-a-kind venture in the country.

Atwal said this was a beginning and the model would be replicated in all prisons of the state.

Deputy Superintendent of Prisons Vikas Bhatnagar said the aim of the programme was to create awareness among prisoners and the jail staff about better management of waste.

This was being done in collaboration with Waste Warriors, an NGO operating in Dharamsala.

The NGO had also initiated an entrepreneur programme along with the model jail programme.

The waste generated in the jail will be converted into compost or used to make re-cycled products, he said. The proceeds would go to Himkara, a departmental social enterprise organisation that makes furniture and bakery products and also runs a restaurant.

Atwal said with a dream of having a pan-India reach, Waste Warriors was formed in 2012 to fight a war against waste in the Himalayan landscape.

Through different strategic and creative interventions in eight other locations across Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the Waste Warriors has established itself as one of the leaders in community-led solid waste management in the Himalayas.