The New Indian Express  11.12.2010

PUNE: The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has decided to push the door-to-door collection of garbage and has proposed setting aside Rs 4 crore from its coffers for the purpose.

Municipal commissioner Mahesh Zagade, in a proposal to the standing committee, has stated that SWaCH, a ragpickers' organisation, has been collecting garbage from thousands of homes. A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the organisation and the civic body.

The MoU states that all households should be covered by the ragpickers. "As of now, SWaCH members cover about 35-40 per cent households in the city. Every household pays them Rs 10 per month. Generally, two waste collectors cover 250-350 households and they get paid around Rs 2,500-Rs 3,500. Many wastepickers give up as the returns are meagre. If the PMC provides assistance of Rs 5 per waste collector, they will get around Rs 4,000-Rs 5,250 per month," the proposal said.

No amount is charged from slum dwellers and hence the civic body should pay them Rs 5 per slum tenement per month, the proposal added.

"It is necessary that garbage collection by SWaCH achieves its target. The assistance of Rs 5 per household will put the burden of approximately Rs 4 crore on the civic body every year. It will help the PMC achieve 100 per cent garbage segregation," the proposal said.

The civic body has told citizens that garbage will not be cleared or their water connection will be cut off if segregation does not happen. Most societies have not complied with the civic orders.

Clearing garbage

SWaCH is authorised to provide door-to-door waste collection and other allied waste management services by the PMC. It includes collection, resource recovery, trade and waste processing. SWaCH services 2 lakh homes across the city.

DPs must fix places for processing plants'

The state assembly on Friday debated the city's garbage issue. Minister of state for urban development Bhaskar Jadhav said that the state government has decided that locations for garbage processing plants have to be identified in any new or revised development plan.

The discussion started on a calling attention motion when MLAs from Thane complained that the garbage issue was not handled efficiently by the local authorities. Pune's MLAs joined the debate and said that the Pune Municipal Corporation was facing problems in finding locations for processing plants.

All efforts by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the district collector to acquire land in the villages around Pune to set up garbage processing plants have failed. Villagers are not ready to give their land and there was no option but to set up processing units within the city's limits and citizens will have to cooperate, they said.

The PMC has already announced that the new DP for the city will have reservations across the city to set up garbage processing units. As of now, the city generates about 1,300-1,400 tonne garbage daily. About 1,000 tonne garbage is processed at Hanjer biotech company plant at Urali Devachi, while the rest is treated thorough biogas, mechanical compost and vermi-compost units in the city.