Our Correspondent
New Delhi, Dec. 12(EMN):In an effort that could provide the much needed impetus to campaign for waste segregation at source across the country, two municipal bodies from two Northeast states along with 18 municipalities from 11 other Indian states joined hands and floated a ‘Forum of cities that Segregate’ on Tuesday. The two municipal bodies are Imphal Municipal Council (IMC) Manipur and Gangtok Municipal Corporation(GMC) of Sikkim.The other Municipal bodies include Bengaluru, Panchghani ,Indore, Allappuzha, East Delhi, New Delhi(NDMC), Amdavad,Bobillli, Bhopal, Gurugram, Thiruvanthapuram, Mysuru, Bhagat, Patna, Greater Hyderabad, Gaya, South Delhi Municipal Corporation(SDMC), Vajiapur, etc.
The joining of these two Municipal bodies in the forum came to light when New Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), an NGO set up to disseminate information about science and environment launched the ‘Forum of Cities that Segregate’ during a function following stakeholder’s meet cum media briefing at New Delhi on Tuesday.
The forum launching event was attended by top municipal officials from 13 states, officials from central government and other organizations besides journalists from around 15 states.
“The main agenda of this forum is to give participating cities a platform for exchanging knowledge on solid waste management (SWM),”says Deputy Director General Chandra Bhushan of CSE.”We hope that the cities in the forum would become pioneers in terms of SWM and guide other cities on technical, economic and social aspects of managing their waste.”
The said 20 Municipal bodies from 13 states have also pledged to achieve the target of 100 per cent segregation and fulfil the vision of clean India by 2019.CSE is also planning to assist these Municipalities on building their capacity, according to Program Manager Swati Singh Sambyal of CSE.
In terms of actions initiated by the forum cities, many – including NDMC and the SDMC, Bhopal, Imphal etc.,have started door to door collection of waste. All have begun segregation at source, with cities like Muzaffarpur in Bihar doing it in 50 per cent of its wards, Swati felt.
CSE Director General Sunita Narain said that from collection to disposal of waste,cities are struggling to implement an affordable and sustainable model. On the other hand, the amount of waste generated is increasing every day. Urban India alone generates a gigantic 1.5 lac. metric tonnes per day of municipal solid waste; this amount goes up by 5 per cent every year.
Meanwhile Bazar officer Atish Rai of GMC Sikkim speaking to this reporter on the sideline of the media briefing said that GMC will start distributing one Eco-bin to Municipal (around 10,000)households to start implementation of segregation at source among 1.5 lac. population of Gangtok by January 2018 besides taking up other initiatives.
