Cleanliness eludes Amritsar even 10 years after launch of Swachh Bharat Mission
Ten years have passed since the Modi-led Central Government launched the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014 on Gandhi Jayanti to improve solid waste management, but the holy city has not witnessed much improvement when it comes to cleanliness.
The first condition, which is waste segregation at the source where it has been generated, has not be implemented in the city. This has created a huge mess in the city. Instead of processing legacy waste, garbage on dumping sites is increasing with each passing year.
Segregation of wet and dry waste at the household level is a major component of the Swachh Bharat Mission. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had also instructed the municipal corporation (MC) authorities to implement waste segregation to get rid of increasing garbage heaps on dumping sites.
As the MC didn’t take these recommendations seriously the legacy waste kept piling up at the Bhagtanwala dump. Garbage lifting vehicles sans partitions for dry and wet waste. Besides the MC, the Amritsar Improvement Trust too has deployed tractor-trailers which lift garbage that is not segregated at its source.
Sanjay Kural, an environmentalist from Save Amritsar, an NGO, said, “The authorities are turning recyclable items into garbage due to their negligence. The waste produced in kitchen should be kept separately in garbage lifting vehicles and disposed of in compost pads or pits for turning it into manure. Dry waste such as packing, plastic and other material should be sent to recycling plants. Unsegregated waste should not be collected from houses. Residents should keep waste in separate bins. The city must be garbage free. Dumping of 400 metric tonnes of waste at Bhagtanwala dump every day proves that the civic body authorities have failed to manage garbage.”
In 2016, the MC had signed a contract with a private company for door-to-door lifting of garbage, removal of waste from roadside collection points, bioremediation of legacy waste at dumping site in Bhagtanwala and setting up of a waste to energy generation plant.
Initially, residents got some respite with the start of the door-to-door garbage collection. Over the time people started complaining about tardy lifting of waste and coming up of new garbage dumps in their respective areas. The company entered into a dispute with the MC over the tipping fee. Citing poor financial condition, the company did not implement bioremediation and failed to complete other proposed works.
The solid waste management company is now unable to make any improvements in cleanliness as during the past eight years the condition of garbage lifting vehicles and infrastructure has gone from bad to worse.
Jasbir Singh Sandhu, MLA Amritsar (West), said, “The previous governments signed a contract with a firm to manage waste for 25 years. The company failed on every front. We wanted to terminate the contract with the firm and streamline garbage lifting. Though our efforts have failed to bear any fruit, we are still trying to improve cleanliness in the city.”
Meanwhile, after construction of some community toilets, the MC managed to get open defecation free certificate. This is the only achievement of the MC after the implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission in the city.
