Realising the importance of people’s participation in the implementation of solid waste management programme, the Local Administration Department (LAD) has mandated Green Warrior, a new firm entrusted with the task of collecting, transporting and processing solid waste in Puducherry from next year, to carry out a public awareness campaign.
The Information Education Communication (IEC) campaign will seek to raise awareness among residents on the need for proper disposal of garbage to evolve participatory model of waste management.
As the tenure of Swachatha Corporation, which is currently involved in collection and disposal of solid waste, comes to an end this year, the LAD after a selection process, recently awarded the work to Green Warrior for Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management (ISWM) in Puducherry and Oulgaret Municipality.
Realising the importance attached to people’s involvement in successful management of solid waste elsewhere in the country, the LAD has included IEC as part of the component of ISWM.
Director of LAD S. Sakthivel told The Hindu the new firm has been directed to undertake a sustained IEC programme for having a better solid waste management programme in Puducherry.
“They have already started the awareness programme in residential areas. It will continue for the next few months. Along with the firm’s IEC programme, the department will be soon launch a massive campaign to promote a clean Puducherry. We will be involving educational institutions and other stakeholders in the campaign. We will also launch a social media campaign,” he added.
As per the action plan prepared by the firm, Green Warrior volunteers would be holding discussion with non-governmental organisations, residents’ associations, Rotary and Lions club members to spread awareness about source segregation. The firm also planned to identify bloggers who could join them in creating awareness programmes. Regular street plays in residential areas, deployment of vehicles carrying visual awareness programmes and hiring of animators/sanitary inspectors from Gandhigram University form part of IEC programme.
Emeritus professor, Centre for Pollution Control and Environment Engineering, Pondicherry University S. A Abbasi said, “Nearly all problems associated with pollution control are such that their solution lies not in technology but people’s participation. It is particularly true for solid waste management. Also, segregation of solid waste, along with avoiding generation of solid waste, hold the key to better solid waste management.”
He said the government has to be really serious about solving the problem and make arrangements to reach out to residents.
