GUWAHATI, July 23 � Pune model for solid waste management may be emulated by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC), said Area Sabha Member of the GMC Ward No 11 (B) Satyen Doloi.
This Maharashtra city generates between 1300 to 1400 Metric tones of solid wastes everyday. It has a public-private-partnership (PPP) approach towards managing this huge amount of solid waste.
Talking to this newspaper, Doloi said the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has an Independent Commissioner for Solid Waste Management. It also has a separate budget allocation for solid waste management.
Doloi recently visited Pune to study, on his own, the solid waste management system of this Maharashtra city, which has earned the reputation of one of the cleanest cities of the country. Today Pune is a container-free city
The PMC engages NGOs for collecting the solid wastes from every household in the early morning hours and the wastes thus collected are deposited in the zonal yards of the PMC everyday by 10 am.
Commercial establishments in Pune are required to deposit their solid wastes within their campuses and PMC workers collect those wastes early in the morning everyday.
Pune hotels are to deposit their wastes in their own dustbins and the PMC workers collect these wastes to take them to the PMC biogas plants. The PMC has 14 such plants to generate power for keeping a part of the Pune street lights on.
The solid waste collection system of Pune consists of 90 tipper trucks, 23 hotel trucks, 1963 rag pickers, 936 containers and 412 dumper placers across the city. While the tipper trucks collect 95000 kg waste everyday, the hotel trucks collect 124370 kg waste per day and the rag pickers collect waste in a door-to-door mode from 2,47 lakh properties.
The solid wastes from the yards are taken to the main plant of the PMC where bio-degradable and non-bio-degradable wastes are segregated. Then the waste plastic materials are sent to the recycling plants owned by the private parties and this also provides an income to the PMC.
The rest of the wastes is used to produce two types of fertilizer � one being vermi-compost and this also provides an income and thus the Pune people are also getting the benefit of organic fertilizer.
Solid wastes are also used in Pune to produce solid fuels required in brick kilns to replace coal. Each of the above projects is owned by the PMC.
The PMC collects tax for solid waste management from the households, through the NGOs, at varied rates depending on the storey on which the household is located and this tax starts at Rs 10 per month. The upper limit of this tax is Rs 30 per month.
Awareness among Pune residents about the importance of keeping their city clean is such that they regard it their duty to keep their city clean.
The GMC, or, for that matter the Assam Government, should emulate the ideals of PMC in this respect and ensure eradication of all sorts of corruption in this area. Or else, Guwahati will remain a dirty city.
Keeping Guwahati clean is a matter of prestige for the Guwahatians. There should be no compromise in this area, said the Area Sabha Member of GMC Ward No 11 (B).
