Journalism of Courage
A few years ago, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) introduced a container-free project across wards to keep the city clean. The initiative entailed undertaking a door-to-door initiative to collect waste through Swach, a cooperative of waste pickers, and NGO Janwani. Though the project was initially successful, it is now facing a challenging task — the civic body is aiming at 100 per cent door-to-door waste collection in Pune. At present, the container-free plan is being implemented in 21 electoral panels, with Swach providing personnel for door-to-door waste collection, Janwani raising public awareness about it and the PMC providing necessary facilities for the project.
“The PMC has set a target to make the city container-free through 100 per cent waste collection at the doorstep and asked Swach and Janwani to gear up for it,” said a civic officer.
Almost 2,800 waste pickers cover 5.5 lakh households, said Aparna Susarla of Swach cooperative, adding that they were the “foundation” of making the area container-free.
Swach has started planning how to achieve the PMC’s objective, she said, adding, “All stake holders will have to play an important role if the goal is to be achieved. The initiative has to be made sustainable…..”
The present user fee is Rs 50 per household. Susarla said the focus should be on making local residents pay for doorstep waste collection, as well as segregation of waste at the source.
“The Swach cooperative was set up in 2007 and it is now a well established model. It has reached 60 per cent of the households in the city… about 40 per cent households were reluctant about paying the user fees… they need to be convinced by raising awareness,” she said, adding that Swach has been able to make inroads in some slums that now witness 100 per cent waste collection.
Saroj Badgujar of Janwani said they were prepared for the task, adding, “We have the awareness programme in place… there is already a team of 90 people working on it and it will be expanded soon.” .
She said Janwani would be exploring new ways to raise awareness, including reaching out to each and every household by creating awareness among school students.
Badgujar said Janwani was also trying to convince local residents about paying the user fees for waste collection, and the need to segregate waste at the source.
“There are problems in collecting user fees at some places, with the local residents complaining about irregular waste collection. So, the waste pickers have to be regular in collecting waste…,” she said. Badgujar said while the segregation of waste at source was important, the civic administration could also play an important role in making it happen by taking action against residents who did not adhere to it.
