Study of wast management in Darjeeling in 200 words
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Darjeeling, Dec. 4, 2018: Irresponsible waste dumping and careless incineration is posing a serious risk to health to Darjeeling, a biodiversity hotspot.
Bengal’s prime and prized tourist destination, and its highest revenue-earner in this sector, is fast losing its sheen. Pockmarked with overflowing garbage whose malodor envelops the city, Darjeeling’s innards are rotting.
The city, founded as a sanatorium by the British in 1835, has grown by leaps and bounds in a totally unplanned manner since 1947 and has, thus, become a civic mess. Darjeeling was placed at an embarrassingly low 451 in a list of 471 Indian cities ranked in order of cleanliness in the Swachh Survekshan 2018.
Darjeeling’s estimated 135,000 people live in mostly concrete, box-like structures that are eyesores, erected cheek by jowl in a 10.6 square kilometer area straddling two ridges. From afar, the city looks like an unruly collection of uneven building blocks packed together as in a can of sardines, and presents a stark contrast to the breathtakingly beautiful snow-peaked Kanchendzonga range in the background.