With solid waste management posing a challenge to every civic body, Puttur City Municipality has come out with a novel initiative called Shuchi Mitra to make people more involved in managing garbage generated in the city.
Under this initiative, two members from civil society in each ward will help the municipality in convincing people of the need to segregate waste at source, not to throw garbage in public places and identify such people who do so, create awareness on Solid Waste Management Rules and enlighten and motivate people to opt for different types of wet waste composting.
Commissioner of the municipality Madhu S. Manohar said that the two members who will help the municipality in this will be volunteers from each one of the 31 wards. The municipality will not pay them any honorarium or fee.
It has invited applications from such volunteers who should be residents of particular wards. The volunteers will be selected by this month-end and Shuchi Mitra teams will be formed.
Once the volunteers are selected, they will be enlightened on the laws related to solid waste management, technologies available for converting wet waste into compost, how to segregate waste and the like.
Those volunteers will have to interact with people locally either by meeting or holding meetings under the auspices of the municipality to create awareness on the entire solid waste management process.
The volunteers selected can also give suggestions to the municipality on improving solid waste management. Once they mingled with people, they can collect their feedback, identify loopholes and suggest remedial measures. The municipality will take them with a positive spirit to ensure that solid waste management becomes a success.
Mr. Manohar said that the details of Shuchi Mitras will be uploaded on the website once the list is ready.
The Commissioner said that Puttur city generated between 15 tonnes and 20 tonnes of garbage daily. Segregation of waste at source is yet to pick up fully.
The volunteers can file applications by downloading them from the website of the municipality, www.putturciy.mrc.gov.in , or they can collect them from the health section, till Wednesday. The applications will be scrunitised and the volunteers will be selected on August 30 and their names will be announced on the website on August 31.
Shuchi Mitras will be issued a badge and a certificate from the municipality.
The Commissioner said that the initiative is to make people understand that if solid waste management is to become effective, it needed the cooperation and involvement of all residing in the city.
