Clean the city, use the garbage

by Isher Judge Ahluwalia


Garbage in open dumpsites on the streets of Indian cities is a common sight and a huge health hazard. The solution has not only to do with “solid waste management” but a lot to do with residents understanding the value of keeping public places clean and its link with health. Hygiene, like charity, begins at home.The Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) has done it. They have launched a dual campaign to raise public awareness of the menace as well as improve the coverage and quality of their service to collect solid waste from the households and manage its scientific disposal through public-private partnership. This along with building “pay and use” toilets in different parts of the city, has made Rajkot a clean city, earning it a place among the 10 cleanest cities in the country. The corporation received Rs 8.7 crore for solid waste management from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Of this, Rs 5 crore was used in the purchase of equipment and vehicles for collection and transportation of solid waste, eg, wheelbarrows, cycle rickshaws, bins, hydraulic dumpers and JCBs (excavators). Until three years ago, only 25 per cent of the households had their garbage collected from their homes by the municipal corporation. Today, close to 90 per cent are covered by hiring 1000 women from Sakhi Mandals (self-help groups) who are paid Rs 10 per household per month for a three-hour service (7 am to 10 am) of door-to-door collection using wheelbarrows with separate compartments for dry and wet waste.Dressed in their uniform with whistles hanging round their necks, the Sakhis looked every bit their part. They are free to sell any recyclable material from the waste to supplement their income, which adds up to about Rs 3,500 per month. The rest of the garbage is delivered by them in covered bins at specified locations in the city. The households are not being charged for the service to help them form the habit of segregating dry and wet waste before collection. The corporation set up two transfer stations in 2007 from where the waste is transported to the disposal site (22 kms away from the city) by two private contractors who were awarded the contract through competitive bids. This ended the practice of dumping at two open sites, each about 10 kms away from the city. The waste is taken from covered bins to the transfer stations using municipal staff and private contractors. No litter on streets/public places and no use of plastic bags were the other themes of the clean city campaign. RMC has gifted 6,000 dustbins to shopkeepers and 4,500 bins have been located on the main roads for spot collection. Mobile vans ply the city throughout the day for residual collection. Since April 2008, there is also a penalty for littering in public places and for using plastic bags, and also for not segregating garbage. This has yielded Rs 50 lakh to the municipal corporation, as of November 2010. Under a “one day one ward campaign”, concerned officers from all departments of the corporation visit the same ward once every 23 days (the city has 23 wards) to review and fix any interdepartmental problem of coordination. The municipal commissioner, Dr Dinesh Brahmbhatt personally oversees the cleanliness drive in the city. On certain days of the month, school students are given the authority to determine the “dand” (penalty) for dirtying the city. In the vegetable market at the newly set up hawkers’ zone, the customers were proudly showing off their colourful fabric bags and declaring how they were shunning plastic bags. The floor of the open market certainly looked very clean. The hawkers were taken off the streets and located in a four-walled open plot for a monthly payment of Rs 25 per thela (cart). The hawkers were relieved not to have to pay bribes to operate from the streets and pavements. Attached to the open market is a “pay and use” toilet for public use. Typically, the charge was 50 paise and it has now been raised to Re 1; the toilets are free for women and children. In all, 150 “pay and use” toilets have been constructed, of which nearly 90 are in slums, with special arrangements for children. The corporation is also building seven “high-end” toilets on a BOT basis, charging in the range of Rs 2 to Rs 5 for each use, and generating revenue through sale of advertisement rights. Processing and disposal of solid waste is being handled through a public-private partnership with Hanjer Biotech Energies Pvt. Ltd. Hanjer was awarded a Build-Operate-Own contract through a negotiated bid in 2003 to set up a waste processing plant, the first of its kind in the country. The corporation gave 30 acres of waste-land on lease at Re 1 per square metre to Hanjer in Nakarawadi village, 22 kms away from the city. It has agreed to deliver 300 metric tonnes of garbage to the plant every day and also committed to supply upto two lakh litres of water per day and electricity for the plant’s operations. Construction started in June 2005 and the plant was commissioned in April 2006. Hanjer makes its money by processing the waste. The segregation at the plant into dry, waste and inert materials is largely automated. Daily, Hanjer produces about 40 tons of organic compost, 70 tonnes of green or slow burning coal and 2.5 tonnes of plastic lumps from the 300 metric tons of waste. The wet waste (20-30 per cent of the total) is used for making organic compost, which is sold in the domestic market as well as exported to Oman and Pakistan. The dry waste (30-40 per cent of the total) is used for making green coal, which is sold to nearby ceramic factories and also to the cement industry. Plastic lumps made from plastic waste are sold for manufacturing irrigation pipes. The recyclable waste (about 3 to 5 per cent of the total) is segregated and also sold. A scientific landfill site adjacent to the waste processing plant is under construction by Hanjer and is being paid for by the RMC through funds from JNNURM. The site is expected to be completed by March 2011. It includes development of bunds, layers of geo-textile and clay, and lechate drains.Only about 10-15 per cent of the total waste in the form of inert material will go into the landfill site. RMC shall pay Hanjer Rs 220 per tonne of inert waste going into the site, subject to a maximum of 20 per cent of the total waste, in line with guidelines under the Municipal Solid Waste Rules 2000. The corporation has paid an advance installment of Rs 30 lakh to Hanjer, which will be adjusted against the filling of the site with the inert material, once the site is functional beginning March, 2011.Indeed the system of waste disposal can be improved. If lease rental could be determined through open competitive bidding, then it should be possible to cover situations even with negative lease rental if the revenue stream does not cover the costs.Rajkot has shown that remaining clean is a win-win situation.

source; Indian Express


Isher Judge Ahluwalia ,is chair of Icrier and of the high-powered expert committee on urban infrastructure. Nair is a consultant to the committee. Views are personal, postcardsofchange@expressindia.com