Our Correspondent
Imphal, May 14 (EMN): In a move to enhance the implementation of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, the authorities in Manipur are planning to start segregation of municipal solid waste at source (the household level) through the urban local bodies (ULB) from July this year. There are around 27 ULBs in Manipur.
A state policy on solid waste management is in the draft stage waiting for its finalisation and approval, an official said on Tuesday.
Speaking to this reporter on phone, Director of Municipal Administration Housing and Urban Development (MAHUD), Th Harikumar said that efforts are on to encourage self-help groups (SHG) to involve and take up their respective roles from generation point of the waste to its disposal process.
The involvement of SHGs in most of the municipal wards in the state is the need of the hour for improvement of the solid waste management in the state. There are around 300 municipal wards in the state.
Presently, the staff of Imphal Municipal Corporation (IMC) and 14 other recognised non-governmental organisations have been collecting the municipal solid waste from Imphal areas on a daily basis and transported the unsegregated waste by more than 50 trucks to a newly developed solid waste management plant at Lamdeng in the outskirt of Imphal.
The non-segregated waste is then sent to the waste management plant at Lamdeng for segregation and their subsequent conversion into compost.
It may be mentioned that the Imphal town area generates more than 100 metric tonnes of solid waste on daily. Interestingly 65 percent of the municipality solid waste collected so far is plastic waste.
In case the segregation of waste at the house-level (at source) begins in the state capital, the trucks which are supposed to transport the waste need to be redesigned with different chambers. Similarly, each household needs to maintain separate bins.
It may be mentioned that the MAHUD in collaboration with Manipur Urban Development Agency organised a one-day workshop on Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 and Plastic Waste Management rules 2016, for ULBs in Imphal on Monday to deliberate on the directives of the National Green Tribunal regarding two cases, namely solid waste management rules and river pollution case.
