Having discarded its dustbin-free wards programme and the plan to hand over solid waste management in Visakhapatnam to Ramki Enviro Engineers in a limbo, GVMC is now planning to start a pilot project covering all the zones in the city. The city generates about 1,000 tonnes of garbage a day and its disposal is a major problem. Though a ‘pelletisation’ plant was planned, it never took off.
In the pilot project, the waste separated into wet and dry at the doorstep of the residents will be collected by the corporation. The garbage from every 50 houses will be collected by a mini vehicle at a transit point and sent to the allotted site. The wet waste will be converted into manure using organic waste converting machines at the site and will be sold later. The dry waste will be stocked and rag-pickers can take it away free of cost.
“In each of the zone barring Zone IV 400 houses each in two areas are being identified for implementation of the pilot project. In Zone IV, however, it will be implemented involving 6,000 houses,” Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana told The Hindu on Wednesday. The implementation will first begin in ward 42 of Zone IV where a five-acre site has been identified for setting up the machine costing Rs.11 lakh and stocking the waste.
No money will be collected from the households for picking up the garbage at their doorstep. In Ward 11 of Zone II where dust-bin free programme was implemented earlier, buckets will be given free of cost to residents of Gandhinagar
Mr. Satyanarayana said the solid waste management at Zone IV would be a replication of the Salur SWM model. At the municipality in Vizianagaram, waste is converted into compost for nearly two years setting an example to the other towns and cities.
With vehicles and other arrangements almost ready, the new pilot project is expected to take off in the first week of the New Year.
