Guwahati Municipal Corporation Launches Rs 145 Crore Solid Waste Management Initiative with Door-to-Door Garbage Collection

GUWAHATI: The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) will take a new initiative of door-to-door garbage collection. The Guwahati Smart City Limited (GSCL) will receive a fund of Rs 145 crore for a solid waste management project under the Guwahati Smart City Mission 2.0. While the funds will be allocated to GSCL, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) will oversee the project's execution.

GMC has devised a novel approach for door-to-door garbage collection. This comes after prior attempts, involving NGOs (non-governmental organizations), ward committees, and groups like Ramky, failed to provide satisfactory outcomes. In the new plan, the city will be divided into 18 divisions, and each division will have a private entity taking responsibility for collecting door-to-door garbage in accordance with what the GMC has planned. Ward committees and non-governmental organisations will no longer be collecting garbage from door to door.

According to a GMC source, a request for proposals has been issued to 18 private entities in order to oversee door-to-door garbage collection. Eight of the sixty wards had door-to-door waste collection last year. It was led by the Ward Development Committee (WDC), which was headed by the ward councillor. New NGOs were appointed in 25 wards, and Ward no. 48 was designated as the model ward, and the previous NGOs were kept in 26 wards. However, the procedure of collecting waste continued to fail. The officials of GMC, including all private-hire parties, will be managed and trained accordingly for the new mechanism.

In light of the project's goal of promoting waste reuse and recycling in the city, this marks a major breakthrough. Serving as the project's implementing organization, GMC will make sure everything proceeds accordingly. This project is a part of the CITIIS 2.0 challenge, which aims to promote innovation and sustainability in 18 cities, including Guwahati, by providing a fund of Rs 1,496 crore.

The GMC will utilize the Rs 145 crore across six key projects. This includes the Vehicle Tracking and Management System, Human Resource Management System, Boom Barriers in Guwahati rivers, Refuse Transfer Station-cum-Material Recovery Facility (RTF-cum-MRF), Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF)-cum-Compost Plant, and Construction and Demolition Waste Processing Plant.

GMC will develop the Human Resource Management System with a budget of Rs 2 crore. The Boom Barriers in the Guwahati rivers will put barriers in the Bharalu and Bahini rivers where the garbage will be automatically collected. The project will require an investment of Rs 10 crore. At present, the GMC has put barriers in the Bharalu River, but the garbage has to be collected manually. Under the RDF-cum-Compost Plant, the Belortol Waste Plant is under construction.

A GMC source said that in the Vehicle Tracking and Management System, everyone, including the residents and all the vehicles involved in garbage collection, will be connected through an app-based mechanism that can be tracked. The door-to-door garbage collection vehicles are currently irregular, so householders can track the cars and report them if they are not arriving on time once they know the vehicle data. In order to track the private companies involved in the work, all trucks transporting waste to the Belortal dump will also be monitored. The entire waste collection operation in the city will be systematized by the system.

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