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| As Municipal Clusters remain unoperational, towns across JK stink | | Waste Management in J&K | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Oct 13: It is almost 2 year when J&K Government decided to create almost 17 Municipal Clusters across state for undertaking solid waste management in a scientific manner. In each cluster three to five municipal councils / committees were clubbed but till date the work is yet to start. Sources say that not even one cluster has been operationalized as no private contractor or waste management company is ready to invest huge money in this kind of model adopted by J&K Government.
As reported earlier by Early Times Government has been planning to undertake source segregation of waste and the same was incorporated while preparing the tenders for outsourcing the 15 cluster towns in J&K last year. For this work Rs 18 crores per cluster have already been earmarked but till date only meetings and conferences have been held and towns across J&K continue to stink. Sources say that during the pre-bid meeting of various stakeholders in New Delhi last year , Govt of J&K had taken this stand that mixed waste will not at all be allowed to be lifted by the contractors or firms who are allotted the waste management work by Urban Local Bodies Department. The waste will be lifted in a segregated manner from each household and then only it shall be treated at the dumping sites. But till date nothing has happened in this direction as well
In order to undertake scientific Solid Waste Management (SWM) across different tows of state, the Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD) invited tenders for solid waste management work by creating as many as 3 dozen clusters for towns across J&K state.
As already reported for each cluster which consists of 4 towns or more an amount of Rs 18 crores has been allocated by the Government. Sources in HUDD say that work was tendered out on Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, but nobody has beenallotted the work as this model can be failure according to them. "Nobody wants to take challenge by investing huge wealth in this model. Best model is to segregate the waste by way of door to door collection, doing IEC work and get the waste to a site around the town itself. No need to makes a single cluster of several towns. This is not going to work here in J&K," said Mujtaba Bashir a waste management expert
Earlier Commissioner Secretary Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD) J&K Government vide order No: HUD /Plan /28-III/2015 Dated 29.3.2017 had directed Commissioners of, Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), Director ULB Jammu & Srinagar plus Deputy Commissioners of Leh and Kargil to give massive thrust by making issue of source segregation into a mass movement. But till date the order is yet to be implemented across state. They had impressed upon every household and every waste generator should start segregating their waste into two bins -green and blue (green for organic waste and blue for inorganic waste) . " To make this initiative a historical effort where 4041 cities of country should start source segregation from 5th June 2017 on occasion of world Environment day" reads the order. Till date even two dustbins haven't been provided to the households by municipalities across state.
As of now not even single municipal authority in J&K is undertaking source segregation of waste. Pertinent to mention that Govt is yet to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) on managing solid waste on scientific lines as per Municipal Solid Waste Rules 2000 & 2016 . The failure to prepare the DPR has lead to severe problems in towns across J&K where the local municipalities have miserably failed to treat the waste which is usually thrown into local water-bodies and forest areas at several places. |
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