The Pioneer 28.09.2010
Door-to-door garbage collection drive finds no takers in RanchiPNS | Ranchi
Dream of neat-and-clean streets, garbage-less crossings and smell-free backyards may remain a day-dream for Ranchiites as the blue-eye project of Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) to engage a solid waste manager for the city is expected to nosedive. The civil body fears that the door-to-door garbage collection exercise would find no takers keeping in mind the lack of infrastructure and mindset of the people.
The pre-bidding process for selecting qualified players has not attached many enthusiasts till date and the lukewarm response is making authorities apprehensive. “I don’t think the exercise would bear any fruit. The practice of door-to-door garbage collecting, its transportation and disposal is extremely expensive and requires high-teach machines. Ranchi does not have infrastructure to facilitate such mechanism,” said a senior official of the RMC.
The Municipal body has extended deadline till October 7 the last date to participate in the pre-bidding process as no player shown interest in the project till few days ago.
The qualified player would have to collect garbage from every home besides segregating the bio-degradable waste from non-biodegradable and dump it properly. Plan is also there to generate electricity from the waste.
The official also expressed his apprehension about non-availability of dumping ground for collected garbage. “We had a garbage collection center at Upper Bazar. But the ground is now been used for organising Durga Puja! We were forced to vacate the place keeping in mind the sentiments of the locals.
The cases like this keep coming as local residents every now and then object over the dumping ground located in their area,” said the official. Currently the civil body dumps the collected garbage to Jhiri, about 20 kilometers away from Ranchi and even there it is facing stiff opposition from the locals.
Besides these the RMC blames narrow streets and unplanned traffic movement in the city that may further hamper the solid waste management in Ranchi. “Look at the lanes and by-lanes. They are so narrow and ill-managed that heavy garbage collection vehicle would find it difficult to perform. People are not much conscious about the sanitation,” he apprehended.
RMC is providing civic services to an estimated population of 10 lakhs of citizen in the capital city. The project area covers 37 municipal wards spread over 176 sq km. The long term goal of this project is to improve the civic condition and quality of life of the residents by increasing the environmental health and institutional status with viable integrated solid waste management system.
Observers suggest that the project may meet the fate of city bus service that also, despite its best efforts, could not find any operator and the Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation has been forced to run it. It would be interesting to note that the service is attracting good amount of loss daily.
