Anil Joshi, Local Bodies Minister, Punjab today gave a call for adopting unique public-private-NGO participatory model to make Municipal Solid Waste Management of cities a success.Inaugurating one day national workshop on municipal solid waste management here today in which Mayors/Commissioners of Municipal Corporations and officials of concerned department from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttrakhand, UP, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Manipur participated. Mr. Joshi said that this workshop organised to mark completion of one year of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) is focusing on Municipal Solid Waste Management as Municipal Solid Waste Management has emerged core component to make Swachh Bharat Mission, a great success.
He said that to make more and more people aware about the Solid Waste Management and provide the solutions to the challenges being faced in the implementation of various initiatives in this regard. He said that the Swachh Bharat Mission is the dream project of the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi and it is first time in the history of the country that such an initiative has been conceived. He said that more awareness needs to be spread especially amongst the students and more importantly the mindset of the people also needs to be changed so as to spread cleanliness and keeping the surroundings clean.The Minister further said that Punjab has been the pioneer state in India that has made a comprehensive MSW Management Plan on a cluster model for all the 164 ULBs in the State on PPP mode way back in 2008 and engaged one of the best consultants at that time for planning of the MSW cluster Programme. Today, out of the 8 clusters, four are bided out.
Giving the information that very soon the tenders for the other 4 clusters will be issued shortly, he appealed to the best companies to come forward and participate in the tenders. He allayed the fears being spread in some quarters that SWM work will cause more pollution. He assured the scientific waste management is the need of the hour, where waste is segregated, processed and scientifically land filled saving the environment. Rather not doing such scientific SWM and continuing the unscientific dumping of waste causes greater damage to the environment.The Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company (PMIDC), Department of Local Government, Punjab, under the aegis of Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, organised one day national workshop on municipal solid waste management in Chandigarh. Earlier welcoming the Minister and other guests, Mr. Ashok Gupta, Secretary, Local Government, said that Punjab is following cluster based integrated SWM approach for managing MSW generated in 164 ULBs (all statutory town & cities) in a scientific manner.
In this context, the state has been divided into 8 clusters comprising of various ULBs. The project is operational in Bathinda, Ferozepur, Ludhiana and Jalandhar Clusters covering around 70 Municipalities lifting approximately 1900 tonnes of waste. Wastes to energy plant at Bathinda & Jalandhar of capacity 12 MW each are part of the project.He elaborated that there are multiple challenges like Land Acquisition, Resentment of Villagers, Non Segregation of wastes into bio-degradable and recyclable wastes by waste generators, How to avoid E-Waste from being disposed off along with Municipal Solid Waste which needed to be overcome in order to ensure the all round success of the Swachh Bharat Mission.
In her keynote address Shubha Thakur, Joint secretary, Ministry of Urban Development said that 1.7 lakh metric tonne waste is daily produced in the country and out of which nearly of the quantity is produced by the metro cities having population above 10 lakh. She said that it is a very big challenge which needs to be overcome with joint efforts of centre and state governments. She appreciated the efforts of the Punjab Government to organize a workshop to address this burning issue.While thanking all the guests on the occasion, Mr. J.M. Balamurugan, CEO, PMIDC said that over the years due to increase in population and rapid urbanisation, the generation of MSW has increased manifolds. The management of MSW has thus become critical for health and hygiene of the urban population. The objective of the workshop was to understand the latest trends in SWM sector and as a part of efforts towards knowledge sharing and information gathering on best practices.
Major General (Retd.) V K Bhatt, Technical Advisor to Chief Minister, Punjab conduced the proceeding of all the sessions. The workshop concluded by making specific reommendations to improve the SWM sector, which will be submitted to the Ministry of Urban Development for follow up action. During the workshop, technical sessions covering Challenges in door to door collection & transportation of waste, Challenges in generating Waste to Energy, Challenges in Processing & Disposal and Challenges in Storage and Transfer of waste were also conducted.On this occasion, Mayors/Commissioners of Municipal Corporations and officials of concerned department from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttrakhand, UP, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Assam, Chandigarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Bihar and Manipur were present. Chief Parliamentary Secretary Mr. K.D. Bhandari, MLA Mr. Pargat Singh, All Mayors, Municipal Commissioners, Municipal Health officers/engineers and Presidents/ Executive Officers from municipalities of Punjab along with officers from other stakeholder departments like Environment, Science and Technology, Industries, Tourism, Forests and Punjab Pollution Control Board, also participated in the event.