This is the story of Sattu, a resident of a small gram panchayat, Noorpur Lubana of Kapurthala district, Punjab, who was forced to live in penury along with his wife and three children.

Noorpur Lubana, a small Gram Panchayat, with a total of 257 families live, generates income through agriculture. In this gram panchayat, there was no formal arrangement for the disposal of garbage, so Sattu was collecting garbage from some houses, and in exchange of this activity he got some money, which used to be the only source of income for the family.
Before the launch of ITC Mission Sunehra Kal, there was no proper system of waste management in this village and there was a huge lack of awareness and information in this regard. At that time Sattu was the only person involved in rag picking and his income stood at Rs 2,000 to 3,000 per month.
In 2018-19, when FINISH Society commenced work in Noorpur Lubana with the help of ITC Mission Sunehra Kal, the organization was first approached by Sattu, because he felt that if a proper waste management system is put in place in the village, it will deliver a killer blow to his livelihood. The fear of losing his source of daily wage started troubling him,
However, Sattu was assured by team MSK and FINISH Society that his income will not decrease but will instead increase in the future. In the beginning he was very surprised as to how this was possible.
Then along with other villagers Sattu was also taught about the scientific process of waste management by the organization. Soon after, the Mohalla Committee started a proper system of waste management in the village, and appointed Sattu as waste collector. He was given this opportunity only because of his experience of managing waste for many years and he began to get a fixed honorarium of Rs 8000/. The main motive of team MSK and FINISH was to increase the family income of Sattu and wanted to showcase him as an example in the field of generating livelihood.
Earlier, the overall garbage collection of the household was mixed, since dry and wet was never segregated, but after the project, the garbage was separated into dry and wet waste and handed over to Swacch Veer ( cleaning Partner),
But there was a challenge for the team to manage the wet waste. However, after seeing the proper segregation of waste, a thought flashed across Sattu’s mind. He saw the people were giving segregated waste in dry and wet form, but the wet waste had left out food of households including precooked food, which could be easily put to use as fodder for his pig farm, Team Mission Sunehra Kal and FINISH Society was very impressed with the idea and supported him to start Pig Farming as an alternate source of livelihood. He started a piggery with 4 pigs, but with proper arrangement of fodder for the pigs he increased the number of pigs on his farm, By the start of the year 2020, Sattu set up his piggery and his wife started working in some households and the overall family income of Sattu rose to optimum levels.
But suddenly due to the impact of Covid-19, the government declared a lockdown and this adversely impacted the piggery of Sattu. His wife’s work also stopped and soon the family was mired in a big financial crisis.
At that point in time Team Mission Sunehra Kal and FINISH Society came to support Sattu and the team provide him with an opportunity to engage him as a drainage cleaner in the project, where he started to earn some incentive soon after he commenced doing this. This activity enabled him to generate an income of 7000/ month. Soon after lockdown was lifted, he once again started his piggery, His son too started supporting him in his business, and they started purchasing wet waste as fodder for pigs at the cost of 150/ day. And Sattu, who at one time afraid as to what would happen after the start of waste management activity in the village is today generating additional income of up to 1,25,000 annually by selling the pigs. What was once waste is today his source of strength.