Ghaziabad civic body hopeful of improving its Swachh ranking

The civic body officials said that they are processing 1,200 metric tonnes of waste that is generated on a daily basis

Ahead of this year’s Swachh Survekshan that begins on Tuesday, officials at the Ghaziabad municipal corporation said that they are hopeful of improving its ranking.

Two wet waste processing plants are in operation at Vijay Nagar and Muradnagar. (Sakib Ali /HT)

The civic body officials said that they are processing 1,200 metric tonnes of waste that is generated on a daily basis. They said that they have four facilities, out of which two are engaged in processing dry waste while another two process wet waste generated from households. According to official estimates, wet waste constitutes about 50 percent of the daily waste while dry waste is about 40 percent and the remaining 10 percent constitutes a mix of both dry and wet waste.

“Our two dry waste processing plants are fully operational at Ret Mandi and Sihani, while the two wet waste processing plants are in operation at Vijay Nagar and Muradnagar. The wet waste processing plants are converting the waste to manure after a period of 28 days. With all these plants fully operational, we are now able to fully process Ghaziabad’s daily waste,” said municipal commissioner MS Tanwar.

The officials said that dry waste is getting segregated at the two plants and is thereafter sold to private firms.

“We are fully geared up for the Swachh Survekshan, which starts from March 1, and are quite hopeful of improving our rankings this time,” Tanwar added.

Non-availability of a landfill site and gaps in solid waste processing hampered Ghaziabad’s prospects in last year’s Swachh Survekshan as the city ended up in the 18th position in the category of cities having a population between 1 to 4 million. During the previous Swachh Survekshan in the year 2020, the city had secured the 19th position, while in 2019 it secured the 13th rank.

The Swachh Survekshan under the Union ministry of housing and urban affairs is designed on three key parameters, which include service-level progress for assessing segregated waste collection and processing and disposal of solid waste, citizens’ voice that is based on direct feedback by residents and certification assessment progress of the cities on their performance under the ministry’s certification protocols such as star-rating for garbage free cities and open defecation free (ODF), ODF+, ODF++ or water+.

The environmentalists said that the city still needs to do better in order to comply with the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016.

“The biggest problem is segregation of waste at the source and also at intermediary centres. For this, there has to be strict enforcement, otherwise this may never be achieved. There are open dumps of garbage in slum areas and these also need to be cleared and streamlined,” said Akash Vashishtha, a city-based environmentalist.