Nagpur: The much touted campaign to collect segregated wet and dry waste at source (households, hotels, commercial establishments etc) launched by Nagpur Municipal Corporation under Swachh Bharat Abhiyan commenced on June 5 which is also observed as World Environment Day.
A galaxy of dignitaries including Mayor Nanda Jichkar distributed green bins for wet waste and blue bins for dry waste in all the ten zones of Nagpur Municipal Corporation. The Mayor personally distributed the bins in Mangalwari and Laxminagar Zones. Other personalities present on the occasion include Chairman of Standing Committee Sandeep Jadhav, Additional Secretary in Central Government’s Urban Development Ministry Deendayal, Mangalwari Zone Chairperson Sushma Chaudhari, Weaker Sections Committee Chairman Mahendra Dhanvijay, Corporators Narendra Walde, Rashmi Dhurve, Sneha Nikose, Sakshi Raut, Sangita Girhe, Additional Deputy Commissioner Jayant Dandegaonkar, Health Officer Dr Pradeep Dasarwar, Zone Assistant Commissioner Vijay Humne and others.
Similar functions were organised in Gandhibagh Zone, Lakadganj Zone, Dharampeth Zone, Satranjipura Zone, Dhantoli Zone, Nehru Nagar Zone, Hanuman Nagar Zone and Ashi Nagar Zone.
Apart from Mayor Nanda Jichkar, Deputy Mayor Deepraj Pardikar, Corporators, office-bearers and officials, Green Vigil Foundation’s Kaustubh Chatterjee, volunteers of I-Clean, Green Earth Organisation were present on the occasion.
No homework:
However, the initiative is likely to come to a naught not for one but countless reasons. One of the prime reasons the effort going haywire could be no proper homework done by the NMC administration and other concerned agencies. Secondly, the citizens do not segregate dry and wet waste before dumping it in the Kanak Resource Management vehicles that go house to house according to whims and fancies of the employees. Thirdly, even the civic body’s sanitary workers and employees of Kanak Resources Private Limited, the private firm appointed to lift garbage house to house, have failed in discharging their duties. Moreover, utter confusion prevails among the citizens over procuring of green and blue bins to be used for segregation of wet and dry waste respectively. NMC had announced providing the bins to the poor and needy people free of cost. But only a few citizens could receive the green and blue bins.
NMC has planned to provide the bins to slum-dwellers and persons living Below Poverty Line (BPL) free of cost but the Chairman of Standing Committee Sandeep Jadhav and Ruling Party Leader Sandeep Joshi have urged the financially capable people to purchase the bins for reducing burden on the cash-strapped civic body. It would be a guessing game as to how many people purchased the green and blue bins for segregation of wet and dry waste.
According to environment activists, providing dustbin to citizens needs huge funds and there is no guarantee that they would use it for collection of segregated waste only. Life of dustbins will hardly be one year. Hence, instead of spending so much on dustbins, NMC should have educated and encouraged citizens about segregation of waste long back.
In its general body meeting convened on May 9, the NMC had decided to provide two dustbins each to about 5.5 lakh houses to promote segregation of dry and wet garbage. According to the proposal, a green bin was to be provided to collect wet waste and a blue one for dry garbage. The civic body has earmarked around Rs 14 crore to purchase 11 lakh dustbins.
