Saturday, 29 October 2022 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Joint effort by officials & locals needed to tackle waste management crisis in Doon
Though many have been speculating about the chances of the waste crisis worsening in Dehradun after Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (REEL) gets relieved of its duties on October 30, observers opine that situations were not quite pleasant during its working years. REEL is currently managing the operation of the solid waste management and recycling plant in Sheeshambada and its sister company Chennai MSW is providing door to door garbage collection service in 69 of the 100 wards. REEL has been working for about five years under the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) but the situation has appeared to get worse with each passing year. The accumulation of garbage in roadside areas, unsegregated waste being collected during garbage collection service and heaps of garbage accumulated in the waste management plant over the years are the current prominent sanitation issues in Dehradun. However REEL alone cannot be entirely blamed for it as several other factors have evidently made the waste management issue worse in Dehradun. The corporation has also failed to responsibly supervise and monitor the sanitation facilities. It also did not adopt any practical approach to promote basic initiatives like waste segregation at source during door to door garbage collection and waste reduction in the city that could work wonders in waste management which have been the ultimate goal of the corporation.
Social activist and president of the Social Development for Communities (SDC) Foundation, Anoop Nautiyal said that the urban local bodies should adopt a decentralised system that connects people concerned with the root cause and help in resolving the issue rather than the current system to lay the foundation of robust waste management. He said that the corporates like Ramky and Chennai MSW are profit driven enterprises and will continue to work till the time it suits them. If they decide to leave for whatever reason as they do now, it affects the entire city, he said. Nautiyal opined, “The failure of the waste management plant in Sheeshambada in just the past four to five years holds several lessons which should not be ignored. The MCD needs to diversify risks as per our sanitation issues rather than entirely being dependent on a corporate company. These companies work till it suits them and then leave which affects thousands of families. In our case, the Doon valley which includes Dehradun, Mussoorie, Vikasnagar, Herbertpur, Dehradun cantonment, Landour, Clement Town cantonment and several other areas are impacted due to such a decision.” He said that with or without a company, the ULBs should religiously follow the mantra of 100 per cent waste segregation at source as no waste management strategy will succeed without it. The local bodies should focus on waste reduction by making it a priority rather than waste management. “The central government had notified six kinds of waste in 2016 – municipal solid waste, plastic waste, e-waste, bio-medical waste, construction and debris waste, and hazardous waste. The ULBs should also work on all such waste streams rather than just focussing on disposal of solid and plastic waste,” said Nautiyal. He added that the officials and the locals need to work together to tackle this grave situation as there is actually no other choice.
