The Hindu               20.08.2013

Doorstep waste collection in dumps

In six months, the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC)
plans to collect segregated waste from each house in the city. It sounds
ambitious, considering its earlier plan of collecting non-segregated
garbage from doorsteps seems to have faltered midway.

A
day after the Principal Secretary in-charge of Dakshina Kannada
Bharatlal Meena directed the MCC to start collecting segregated waste
within six months, its officials held meeting on Saturday to discuss how
the proposal can be turned into reality. The MCC has decided to make an
action plan to this effect in a few days, sources told
The Hindu
.

But the meeting brought into focus the issues faced in the ongoing door-to-door trash collection drive.

The
contractors now collecting solid waste under eight packages in the city
also attended the meeting. They said the door-to-door collection of
non-segregated waste started from December 2012 has failed in many wards
as people refused to pay a monthly fee of Rs. 30 fixed by the civic
body to the waste collectors.

Nagarika Hitrakshana
Samithi president G. Hanumantha Kamath said waste collectors were not
going to all houses and collected garbage mainly from apartments and
blocks of houses. People refused to pay as the collectors were demanding
Rs. 50 monthly, he said.

Shreya, a homemaker at
Vijaynagar, Padil said that nobody was collecting waste from the
doorsteps in her locality. Roopa D. Bangera, councillor, Kadri North
ward, said the door-to-door collection was not happening in Yeyyadi
area. “In my ward it is 55 per cent success,” she said.

A corporation health official said it has only nine health inspectors against the 24 required to supervise 60 wards.

Hence, it was impossible to supervise the door-to-door collection in all wards effectively.

Cess

Linked
to the fee payment is the issue of solid waste cess on property tax
being collected since 2011-12 with the monthly minimum varying from Rs.
10 to Rs. 600. But it was suspended as the door-to-door collection of
garbage had not taken off.

MCC Commissioner Ajith
Kumar S. said the civic body is yet to take a final decision on how to
effectively collect the solid waste cess.

Though
it is compulsory for contractors to collect the waste from houses its
success rate is only 30 per cent. The corporation has failed in its
responsibility.

G. Hanumantha Kamath

President, Nagarika Hitrakshana Samithi

Segregating
waste at source will become a success only if the government imposed
fine on those who refuse participate. Kitchen waste can be put to plants
and plastic materials can be stored and sold.

Vinita Rai K

Co-ordinator of National Service Scheme, Mangalore University