"New India" - is witnessing phenomenal changes across economy, society and policy among others. Urbanization is also one such change. There is fast increase in urban landscape in India. As per census 2011, India currently houses 31 % population approximately in its urban areas which is projected to reach around 67% by 2050. This fast pace of urbanization brings many challenges and opportunities with itself. Solid waste Management (SWM) has been one such challenge for town planners in India since the very institutionalization of school of town planning & architecture in 1960's.
Town planners see both urbanisation and SWM as inter wined concepts.Despite lot of police interventions, fast paced urbanisation and associated piling up of landfills continues to puzzle planners and policy makers as to how to tackle this challenge.
Challenge of SWM becomes all the more complex when not only the fast pace but other aspects of urbanisation are also taken into consideration. Most of the cities in India are not post industrialisation phenomena. But, many of them are outgrown medieval walled cities like Jaipur, Lucknow and Mysore etc. India's metro cities like Calcutta, Madras, Bombay were once presidential towns suring British times. Unplanned development of these cities have made the case for SWM all the more difficult.
Further, Indian Cities are densely populated. Delhi - the capital itself houses around 11000 people per square kilometer area. Similar is the case with Mumbai, Chennai and other metros (Tier-1). In fact, problem of population implosion is such that tier 1 towns in India grew disproportionately vis-a-vis other smaller towns.
Dharavi in Mumbai is the manifestation of this problem. This is the largest slum in Asia which developed due to intense migration to Mumbai from other parts of country.
There are many other challenges also. Kanpur in UP is known for leather tanneries which releases water directly into river that has led to disrupt the river ecosystem. Lot of solid waste is also drained into these rivers. Similar problem is witnessed by Yamuna in Delhi, Musi in Hyderabad or Godavari around Nasik. Muncipal corporations across India see polythene as the biggest polluter to system which is not biodegradable and thus cause the problem of bio-accumulation and manifestation through out the food chain, leading to even death of cattle.
Similarly, weak implementation of 74th constitutional amendment act and lack of autonomy have made municipal bodies ineffective instruments of local governance which are also supposed to manage SW in cities.
However, government is not sole responsible for uncleaned cities with stagnant water giving rise to vector borne disease like Dengue, JE etc. Citizens are equally responsible. Most of citizens, behaviorally, have not realised or if realised, not internalised the worth of keeping surroundings clean. Open defecation and uncontrolled littering continue to be a normalised activity. Recent activities by government to launch IEC (information, education, communication) and CLTS (Community led total sanitation) campaigns have increased awareness on the issue of cleanliness, SWM is integral to.
These challenges have met with response from government at various leavels. Central Government has launched Smart City Mission and AMRUT for holistic and cordinated development of cities in India. Government has recently issued new SWM rules in 2016 separating all three components - Collection, Transport and Waste Disposal. Central Government recommended states government to hire private contractor to provide end to end solutions taking up all three activities and not just one which has been erstwhile practice resulting into failure of JNNURM.
Similarly, National Urban sanitation Policy envisages harnessing energy from this solid waste so collected, thus converting a challenge into opportunity. Waste to energy presents a great manifold opportunity by producing energy from waste, thus reducing carbon footprints from other sources. Waste-to-energy if utilized properly can become a significant component of India's energy mix. India has to reduce carbon emission intensity of its GDP by 30-35 % under INDC's submitted at COP 21.
One lesson in this regard can be taken from Madhya Pradesh where government devised an innovative strategy for SWM and associated opportunities. Concept of 'Regional Landfill Cluster' under which cluster of 4-5 urban bodies have been formed and landfill being built at largest waste generating urban body. Private contractors under PPP are to provide entire end to end solutions handling collection, transportation and disposal. Five clusters comprising 27 ULB's are projected to produce 67 MW of power in 2017. Government envisages to cover all 327 ULB's in MP by 2019.
Above case is not the only example. 'Mysore Model' has also been a stellar example of SWM. Governments in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand have already banned polythene, thus preventing the biggest polluter proactively even before the chain of SWM begins.
Urbanisation and SWM presents many other opportunities too and not just energy generation. Socially, better cleaned cities have social well being which leads to general happiness and reduction in juvenile delinquency and other crimes. This in turn helps in building a quality human capital. Gandhiji also focused on cleanliness and went on record saying that everyone should become Safai Karmchari to keep the surroundings clean. He emphasized that a healthy mind lives in a healthy body.
Also, environmentally, cities remain pollution free and solid waste go to incinerators rather than drains. This is also an obligation og government under Supreme court directives in M C Mehta case where it entitled citizens to right to clean environment under article 21 of constitution.
In any case, India's urbanisation can not be stopped. Thus, it becomes inevitable to tackle the challenge of SWM and convert this into any opportunity. If this opportunity is not cashed upon, Indian cities will be nothing but the islands of solid waste in an otherwise clean ocean of rural India.
Way forward for government should be devolving more powers on municipal bodies and direct election to the post of Mayor in major cities who can then be held accountable for apathy of local government. Lack of funds at local urban bodies can be tackled by issuing municipal bonds and other means. Government needs to channelise migration into all urban places and not just tier 2 towns by bringing in balanced regional development so that other areas also become attractive avenues. Rurban Mission is a welcome step in this direction which will even check the migration itself.
E-waste, a new emerging challenge needs to be handled in tandem with SW at least at two stages of collection and Transportation and thereafter e-waste can be recycled effectively, government needs to encourage some start ups in this domain.
This way, Government and citizen of India can catalyse challenges of urbanisation and SWM into great opportunities. It is this that will further the speed of development of New India - in the cities of which government intervenes at the time of waster generation itself.
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