NEW DELHI, Dec 23 - Two municipal bodies from two Northeastern States join hands with 18 municipalities from 11 other Indian States to form a new �Forum of Cities that Segregate� to take up a new urban solid waste management initiative that could provide needed impetus to the campaign for waste management across the country.
The two municipal bodies are Imphal Municipal Council (IMC) of Manipur and Gangtok Municipal Corporation (GMC) of Sikkim. The other Municipal bodies include Bengaluru, Panchgani, Indore, Allappuzha, East Delhi, New Delhi (NDMC), Bhopal, Gurugram, Thiruvanthapuram, Mysuru, Patna, Greater Hyderabad and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).
The joining of these two Municipal bodies from NE in the Forum came when New Delhi-based NGO Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) initiated and launched the �Forum of Cities that Segregate� during a stakeholder�s cum media briefing in New Delhi recently.
The Forum which was launched to share knowledge on solid waste management(SWM), giving capacity building, tracking process of work and documentation practices, was attended by top Municipal officials including officials from Manipur and Sikkim and Journalists from 13 States.
�The main agenda of this Forum is to give participating cities a platform for exchanging knowledge on SWM,�said CSE Deputy Director General Chandra Bhushan. �We hope that the cities in the Forum would become pioneers in terms of SWM and guide other cities on technical, economic and social aspects of managing their waste�, he added.
The 20 Municipal bodies from 13 States have also pledged to achieve the target of 100 per cent segregation and fulfill the vision of clean India by 2019. CSE is also planning to assist these Municipalities on building their capacity, CSE Programme Manager Swati Singh Sambyal said.
CSE Director General Sunita Narain said that from collection to disposal of waste, cities are struggling to implement an affordable and sustainable model. On the other hand, the amount of waste generated is increasing every day. Urban India alone generates a gigantic 1.5 lakh metric tonnes per day of municipal solid waste; this goes up by five per cent every year.
Meanwhile, Bazar officer of GMC Sikkim Atish Rai speaking to this reporter said that GMC will start distributing one eco-bin each to more than 10,000 Municipal households to start implementation of segregation at source among 1.5 lakh population of Gangtok by January 2018. Sikkim is the first State to ban use of styrofoam cups and use water bottles in government meetings.
