Overtaking Indore in Clean India Mission seems a distant dream!

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

The Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) officials, who were on a two-day study tour to Indore, in June, today submitted a power-point presentation before the municipal commissioner G Sreekanth.

The tour comprised 30 officers and personnel from solid waste management and other related sections. It aimed at understanding the secret of the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) which is securing the numero uno position in the Clean India Mission (Swacch Bharat Abhiyan) for the past six years.

The officers made a comparison between IMC and CSMC in terms of manpower, machinery, garbage collection vehicles, processing plants etc through the PPT.

(1) 8,500 sanitation workers

- IMC has 8,500 sanitary personnel to clean the city having 32 lakh population. Of which, 575 personnel work on ghanta gadis; 1,500 are ‘safai’ mitras and 7,000 employees are deployed for sweeping.

- CSMC has 2,886 employees only. Out of them, 1,136 employees of the Reddy Company and 1,750 employees of CSMC work in garbage collection. The CSMC has 300 ghanta gadis and 39 large-size vehicles.

(2) 100 pc segregation

- IMC accepts dry and wet waste only if it is segregated 100 per cent. It has made separate arrangements for the collection of sanitary napkins, diapers, and medical waste on the rear side of the ghanta gadis.

- CSMC collects 60% of segregated waste only. The mixed waste is still sent to the centres and there are no additional facilities in ghanta gadis.

(3) Home composting method

- Some citizens in Indore compost their waste at their homes. The quantity of garbage generated from large settlements is less as they have their own self-composting units.

- In our city, we have very few citizens who process their own waste. There is no waste treatment facility in the housing societies in the city.

(4) Collection of rotten meat

- IMC through private agencies collects rotten meat or other poor-quality meat items in the city. These meat-based products are given to the animals in the zoo. The remaining food waste is also sent for processing.

- CSMC does not implement any such activity. The stray dogs eat the flesh thrown away by the butchers.

(5) Cleaning by hi-tech machines

- The roads in Indore are cleaned during the night with the help of 300 state-of-the-art vehicles manufactured in the USA, Netherlands, France, and Sweden.

- CSMC has bought six vehicles manufactured in India by spending crores of rupees. The mobility of these vehicles is less, but the cost of their maintenance is very huge.

(6) Separate plants

-IMC has set up separate plants for processing sanitary napkins, diapers, household hazardous waste and e-waste.

- CSMC has not even thought of setting up such a project.

(7) Public toilets

- Indore has 85 community toilets, 228 public toilets and 147 urinals.

- Our city has 5 community toilets, 21 public toilets and 50 independent urinals that are closed as of today.

(8) 311 services through App

- IMC provides as many as 311 services through the mobile app.

- CSMC app is not ready yet, but it will be one single app for different schemes.