New in 2010: Civic body promises a city free of garbage containers

The city badly needs a systematic handling of its solid waste. The initiative for segregation of waste at source and collection at doorstep received an impetus in 2009 after the villagers of Uruli-Devachi launched a massive protest against the open dumping of garbage at the lone landfill site.

Having learnt a hard lesson,the first step would be creating an awareness among citizens on management of waste and promoting reduction of waste generation. “The citizens would be disciplined to segregate waste at source so that the collection can be done at doorstep.”

However,the implementation of the plan requires additional manpower and facilities of ghanta gadi and handcarts to achieve the goal. “We have 89 ghanta gadis and around 1,000 handcarts that cover two lakh properties in the city every day,” said Suresh Jagtap,PMC Deputy Municipal Commissioner. However,he added that there were seven lakh properties and two lakh slumdwellings in the city according to the PMC property tax department records.

There are some social outfits engaged in door-to-door collection of segregated waste,but the citizens pay them as per their will. Now the PMC will put a permanent system in place that would ensure regular door-to-door collection of waste against a fixed income to those engaged in the work.

“As many as 3,000 additional hands will be needed to cover the entire city,with each person handling 300 houses a day. The options of social organisations and self-help groups will be explored,” Jagtap said.

The PMC will provide handcarts to these persons besides doubling the number of ghanta gadis for collection of garbage that would be directly taken for processing at the various units.

Two garbage processing units of 500 tonnes’ capacity each will be operational in the next two months. The civic body will then look for options for treating 400 tonnes of waste so that the 1,400 tonnes of waste generated everyday can be treated. It has also adopted a new policy for establishing small garbage processing biogas plants in each of the 14 ward offices besides using civic gardens for treatment of agriculture waste.