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Chandigarh MC set to miss Sept 30 deadline to roll out waste segregation
Had assured NGT to cover entire city by Sept end; faces penalty, slip in Swachh Survekshan ranking
Though the municipal corporation (MC) in March had made a commitment to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) to roll out waste segregation in the entire city by September 30, it is set to fail in keeping its assurance.
This, despite Chandigarh slipping from country’s third cleanest city to the 20th in the 2019 Swachh Survekshan rankings, primarily due to lack of waste segregation.
Failure to roll out the project in time will not only invite heavy penalty from the green tribunal, but will also fizzle out city’s chances of improving its cleanliness survey ranking.
Even as mayor Rajesh Kalia told HT that MC was making all efforts to meet the deadline, the chances of it actualising its promise by September are not so bright, since key reforms, both in terms of infrastructure building and mass participation of residents, are not visible on the ground.
UT adviser and MC commissioner KK Yadav will appear before NGT in mid-October. Sources said MC was likely to request deadline extension.
FAILURE TO ROPE IN PRIVATE COLLECTORS
Majority of the 2 lakh households in urban areas have access to door-to-door collection facility executed by a team of 1,500 private garbage collectors. Yet, waste segregation has not kicked off here.
On the other hand, collection of garbage in a segregated manner has started in multiple villages under MC’s ambit.
“Residents in the past made efforts to handover dry and wet waste separately. But people lost interest when they saw private waste collectors mixing segregated waste in their carts,” said Vinod Vashisht, convener of City Forum of Residents Welfare Organisations (CFORWO).
“How will we motivate residents for waste segregation when there is still no change in their working, despite numerous discussions on improvement,” he said.
MC General House in December had passed a resolution that private collectors will buy e-carts by March 31 to store wet and dry waste separately after picking it up from houses, and then transport it to the MC’s waste collection points.
The corporation was to also sign an agreement with them to streamline and monitor their working. However, it has been unable to sign a pact with them.
When contacted, MC commissioner KK Yadav said the MoU with waste collectors was expected within a few days as talks had already been concluded with their representatives. “We will also table the agenda in the September 16 House meeting to get consent on the MoU,” he said.
HALF-BAKED MEASURES
To sustain waste segregation, MC had proposed a complete solid waste chain whereby waste collected from houses or markets in segregated form would reach waste processing facility in Dadumajra in the same format through three major waste collection points.
Later, the dry waste was to be further segregated into recyclable and non-recyclable waste. However, work on the collection centres and recovery facility has yet to take off.
In absence of waste segregation, the working of the waste processing plant at Dadumajra has also failed to improve. Recently, one of its walls had collapsed due to excess waste.
On this, the MC commissioner said several infrastructure works were under process. “For instance, MC had already bought over 150 garbage vehicles, and will start waste segregation in markets from next week. Once the pact with private waste segregators is finalised, we will launch the system in residential areas too,” he added.
Yadav said MC could launch waste segregation at any time. “But there is no point in starting it for the sake of meeting deadline. We want to make it sustainable for which efforts are underway,” he said.
