Municipal bodies meet on waste management

From A Correspondent

NEW DELHI | Dec 12

In an effort that could provide the much needed impetus to campaign for waste segregation at source across the country, Imphal Municipal Council (IMC) Manipur and Gangtok Municipal Corporation(GMC) of Sikkim along with 18 municipalities from 11 other Indian states joins their hands and floated a ‘Forum of cities that Segregate’ on Tuesday.

The other municipal bodies include Bangaluru, Panchghani, Indore, Allappuzha, East Delhi, New Delhi (NDMC), Amdavad, Bobillli, Bhopal, Gurugram, Thiruvanthapuram, Mysuru, Bhagat, Patna, Greater Hyderabad, Gaya, South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC), Vajiapur, etc.

The joining of these two Municipal bodies in the forum was came to light when New Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE),an NGO set up to disseminate information about science and environment launched the ‘Forum of Cities that Segregate’ during a function following stakeholder’s meet cum media briefing in New Delhi on Tuesday evening.

“The main agenda of this forum is to give participating cities a platform for exchanging knowledge on solid waste management (SWM),”says deputy director, General Chandra Bhushan of CSE. “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.”

The said 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, according to program manager, Swati Singh Sambyal of CSE.

In terms of actions initiated by the Forum cities, many – including NDMC and the SDMC, Bhopal, Imphal etc — have started door to door collection of waste.

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 amount goes up by 5 per cent every year. Bazar officer, Atish Rai of GMC Sikkim and assistant commissioner of IMC Thoudam Sony also attended the event.