BENGALURU: Women will play a greater role at the panchayat level to help keep villages clean while also enabling them to be self-reliant. The Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) Department has stressed on the need to include self-help/women’s groups in solid waste management at the village level and interested women will also be given training to drive garbage collection autos.
The RDPR Department, in association with the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Rural Energy and Development, Department of Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation and the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), is training 18,000 members of self-help groups. Women are already part of the waste collection system in many villages. Like in urban areas, waste is collected thrice a week from each houseold in villages.
In an order, the RDPR Department has directed the panchayats to identify women’s self-help groups or Gram Panchayat Level Federation (GPLF) groups under the National Rural Livelihood Mission for disposing of garbage in villages. These groups will be given training, right from creating awareness on garbage segreation at source, collecting waste from the doorstep till processing waste scientifically.
These identified groups will be given training at the Abdul Nazir Sab State Institute Of Rural Development in Mysuru or through allied NGOs at other district centres. After the training, the Chief Executive Officer of the Zilla Panchayat and the selected groups will sign a memorandum of understanding. The officals will explain the duties and responsibility to the groups on garbage disposal.
The order also stressed that gram panchayats will have to provide financial aid till the groups which manage garbage become self-sufficient. They can collect a fee from each houseold for garbage collection and this should used for garbage disposal and management.
The panchayats have to encourage women’s self-help groups and ensure that they become financially independent. They also have to identify land for processing of waste and allot it to these groups. The women’s groups have also been told to involve ragpickers to collect dry waste. Waste which has to be burnt should be converted into refuse-derived fuel and sold to cement factories and other industries.