Ahead of the Central Government’s annual ranking of cities for cleanliness – Swachh Survekshan – the Coimbatore Corporation is devising new strategies to ensure 100% door-to-door collection of segregated waste and record the same using information and communication technology (ICT).
Sources familiar with the development say that the Corporation will use Quick Response (QR) codes and ‘load cells’ to ensure segregated collection of waste and digital transmission of the data to the Central Government on a real-time basis.
This is to ensure that the Corporation does not lag behind other cities in the revised Survekshan ranking system.
The Corporation is contemplating pasting stickers with QR codes at waste collection points in apartments. Conservancy workers who go there to collect the waste, will have to read the codes using their smart phones. The phones, on reading the codes, will relay the information – the place of collection, the date and time.
Once the workers load the segregated waste onto the vehicles, the ‘load cells’ will read the quantity of waste received – similar to electronic weighing scales – and relay the information, which will be matched with the QR code data – the location (apartment), date, time and quantity of waste received from the apartment.
The sources say that the Corporation has thought of this system for apartments and plans trial runs in the coming days.
As for individual households and commercial establishments, it is yet to devise a strategy.
And, as for bulk waste generators like restaurants, the Corporation, as mandated by the Government, wants them to recycle their waste or engage a private operator for the purpose.
The sources also say that though the Corporation has begun an ICT-based model, it does not have much time left, as it will have to relay at least two to three months’ data before Survekshan team visits the city for assessment.
The team is likely to visit in January 2019 and the three months’ data means the last three months of the current year and that leaves the Corporation with only September to implement a fool-proof system.
During the period, the Corporation will also have to address gaps in waste collection in terms of training its conservancy staff, equipping them with more vehicles as it plans to streamline waste collection using more vehicles and less of push carts and educating the public to handover waste in segregated fashion.
An officer supervising conservancy work says that unlike in the past local bodies cannot get away with good documentation alone as even to get a three-star rating, local bodies will have to have at least 80 per cent segregated collection and for the Corporation that is a tough task ahead.
