Women-Led Cooperative Transforms Waste Management in Tripura Town

In Khowai, a hill town in Tripura, 100 women known locally as didis operate the municipality's complete waste management chain through the Khowai Waste to Wealth Producer Society, a cooperative registered in April and May 2026. The initiative began when Sub-Divisional Magistrate Nirmal Kumar, inspired by the Amul dairy cooperative model, questioned why sanitation workers had the least control over their work despite keeping the town clean. Waste management expert Samir Agartala, who trained for 90 days in Bengaluru on solid liquid resource management, partnered with the municipal corporation to design the system while the didis run daily operations.

The cooperative manages door-to-door collection across 15 wards, seven secondary segregation centres, six material recovery facilities processing 300 to 400 kg daily, and a micro-composting centre with 55 pits handling up to five tonnes of wet waste to produce roughly 500 kg of compost per day. A tertiary facility handles final sorting, baling, and packing. Daily collection averages nearly 1,500 kg of dry waste and 3,000 kg of wet waste, with a municipal survey of 4,500 homes recording close to 4,300 kg of total daily waste generation.

Behaviour change started at the household level. The didis distributed three-category bins door to door, demonstrated the time cost of poor segregation by sorting mixed waste in front of families, and organised field visits to processing centres. Schools and colleges were engaged to carry segregation habits home. As a result, more than 90% of households now segregate waste at source; around five non-compliant households face penalties, and three previously resistant households have begun complying.

Decision-making authority rests with the cooperative. Every centre manager is a didi promoted on qualifications and experience. The cooperative hires and pays one male worker for baling and heavy tasks at the tertiary centre and employs two permanent staff for a toilet cleaning unit. Daily truck rounds for stray public waste have reduced roadside accumulation by roughly 90%, and former roadside bins have been removed or replaced by vendor stalls that must maintain their own dustbins and segregation.

Recyclables are sold to vendors, residual material is ground for road construction, and discarded clothes are washed, treated, and stitched into wearable items by the didis. The workday runs from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm in structured shifts covering collection, segregation, and centre operations, with rotational Sunday shifts ensuring continuous coverage.

Before the cooperative, sanitation work paid about Rs 3,000 a month, which Pinki Kar Deb, now in-charge of the tertiary centre, described as majboori (helplessness). Earnings have risen to approximately Rs 3,500 per month with small monthly increments, paid directly into bank accounts without intermediaries. Pinki, 39, notes she no longer needs a mask, can eat lunch inside the centre, and is addressed with respect rather than the stigmatising label "kachrawala."

The cooperative now receives regular enquiries from women seeking to join, a marked shift from when few wanted such work. Pinki summarises the transformation: the material they handle is no longer considered kachara (garbage) but sampatti (wealth), because the women who once managed others' waste now build value from it on their own terms.