Even as the BMC awaits a copy of the Centre’s latest solid waste management (SWM) rules, experience from implementing SWM rules formulated in 2000 points to lack of manpower as a major challenge for the civic body to make people and officials accountable for garbage segregation and waste generation.
“We need to take waste segregation very seriously and penalise erring societies and officers, but we first need awareness and a reasonable timeframe for people to respond. Moreover, we don’t have the manpower to conduct checks on who is spitting or urinating,” Pallavi Darade, Additional Municipal Commissioner, BMC, said on Wednesday at a citizen interaction programme organised by V Citizens Action Network (VCAN).
The new SWM rules propose land acquisition by the BMC to set up waste processing plants. The civic body currently has a bioreactor treatment plant at Kanjurmarg with the capacity to process 3,000 metric tonnes (MT) of garbage per day.
Meanwhile, the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), a central government enterprise, has offered the BMC its expertise in tackling waste management at the Deonar dumping ground. Faced with the persisting menace of fires at Deonar, the civic body is planning to strengthen its Advance Locality Management (ALM) cadre to raise awareness about waste segregation. From a robust network of 700 ALMs, the civic body is now reduced to 272 ALMs as many strayed from their primary duties to pursue political goals.
To meet the challenge of garbage segregation, the BMC has made premise-wise routes for tempos collecting waste. “There are nearly 83,000 premises. We should have a tempo for dry waste along with one collecting wet waste so that segregated waste can be collected at the same time,” Ms Darade said.
The civic body started 35 new waste segregation centres last year, adding to the already existing network of 32 centres. Mumbai currently generates 11,000 metric tones of garbage daily. “We are processing 40 per cent of the waste we are generating. Our daily garbage generation equals the rest of Maharashtra,” she added.
At Deonar, BMC has undertaken a slew of measures to tackle fire incidents. About seven acres have been covered with mud, five bore wells have been dug for easy access to water in case of fires, and gas wells to release accumulated methane. It has also shortlisted Tata Consultancy Services for waste management technology. Ms Darade said civic medical officers have surveyed the affected area surrounding Deonar and screened 1.7 lakh families for smoke-related problems. About 80 people had respiratory problems and 10 had ophthalmic problems earlier.
We don’t have the manpower to conduct checks
on who is spitting
or urinating
Pallavi DaradeAddl Municipal Commissioner
