NEW DELHI: Indian cities are lagging behind when it comes to the Centre’s ambitious target of achieving 100 per cent scientific management of solid waste before October 2, 2019 — the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
The urban affairs ministry directed the states to fast-track work for ensuring the deadline is met. Solid waste management (SWM) in cities continues to pose a big challenge even as the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban entered the fourth year of its implementation, it said. “…we need to expedite our efforts in this area in a very focused and concentrated manner in the remaining one and half a year in order to achieve the objective of ensuring 100 per cent scientific management of municipal solid waste,” the ministry said.
According to the ministry, the physical targets achieved under solid waste management is merely 23.73% till December 2017
The ministry took many initiatives in last three years to help states and cities to cope with the issues of garbage disposal, it said. “However, these initiatives now need to be complemented by states and cities through on-ground interventions. The initiatives should focus on encouraging source segregation, on-site processing of wet waste decentralized composting etc.”
The state authorities will have to submit a detailed month-wise action plan for achieving the Mission objective of cent per cent solid waste management throughout the country. But, it is not only that the ministry has raised an alarm. A Parliamentary Standing Committee has also flagged the poor progress in solid waste management meant for urban areas.
Examination of financial and physical performance under Solid Waste Management component revealed that the situation is far from satisfactory on both fronts, the panel said in a report. For instance, as against a total allocation of `7,365.82 crore for 2014-19, the total funds released since 2014 is as low as `2427.45 crore. Similarly, the panel found that 100% door-to-door collection of solid waste in urban bodies had reached 68.4% and there were only 32.5% wards which achieved 100% segregation of waste at source.
“With pollution levels in cities growing, landfills overflowing, there is an urgent requirement to reinvent garbage management so that waste is fully processed and not land-filled,” it said.
The panel suggested emphasis be laid on garbage segregation at source, primary collection, secondary storage, transportation, secondary segregation, resource recovery, processing, treatment and final disposal of solid waste to ensure complete waste management.