The National Green Tribunal has starting monitoring the implementation of provisions of Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 through 5 Regional Monitoring Committees (RMCs) across the country. The 1st meeting of Northern region monitoring committee (NRMC) was held under the Chairmanship of Rajwant Sandhu today in Punjab Municipal Bhawan, Chandigarh. Principal Secretaries of Urban Development Department and Member Secretaries of Pollution Control Boards from Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, NCT Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Union Territory of Chandigarh including representative of CPCB participated in the meeting.In the meeting, issues pertaining to formulation of state policy of SWM as per SWM rules, 2016, strategy for its implementation and framing of SWM byelaws were discussed. The focus of the meeting was to prepare the policy and strategy for door to door collection, source segregation of waste, transportation of waste in segregated manner to the processing unit and material recovery. Waste to compost and waste to wealth including promoting the idea of ‘my waste - my responsibility’ was discussed. The various issues like decentralised composting, materials recovery closest to its generation, on-site management of garden waste, leaves and horticulture waste, compliance of bulk waste generators duties, integration of rag pickers, garbage collectors and kabaddis etc. through formation of SHGs, training of municipal staff, preparation of behaviour changeawareness materials, remediation of dump sites, management of legacy waste and sharing of best practices were discussed in detail. Management of solid waste in rural areas and hilly terrains was also discussed. Besides this, user fee and penalty for violators was also discussed.A decision was also taken that all the States/ UTs will formulate their SWM action plan ULB wise and submit the same to MoHUA by 31st October, 2018 and execute the same by 31st December, 2019. The emerging decentralised community based SWM model of Nawanshahr was also discussed for up scaling the same throughout the Punjab.All the participants decided that all ULBs should go for 100% source segregation, door to door collection and transportation of segregated waste, decentralised processing and material recovery for zero waste to landfill, employment generation and good health of the waste collectors and rag pickers.