City needs 4k civic workers, ₹5 cr every month to manage its waste like Indore

Mysuru: Mysuru city needs around 4,000 pourakarmikas for effective management of waste on the lines of Indore, said MCC commissioner Lakshimkanth Reddy. Participating in a meeting chaired by mayor M Shivakumar on Wednesday, he said the civic body needs an additional Rs 5 crore every month for disposal of waste like in Indore on shift basis by pourakarmikas.
Inspired by the success story of Indore, mayor said that a 48-member team from MCC, including corporators and environment engineer, had recently visited Indore to study the Indore Municipal City (IMC) sanitation model, its solid waste management techniques as it is known for its consistent top rankings in cleanliness among Indian cities in the Swachh Survekshan survey.
The team closely examined the sanitation initiatives carried out by the IMC, as well as the city’s overall development. His team also visited its solid waste management plants and a landfill site to gain insights into garbage segregation techniques, waste disposal methods, and door-to-door waste collection, cleanliness, compost production, and its success in generation of compressed natural gas Bio-CNG by utilising waste generated in that city.
Mayor also said that Indore has maintained a solid waste management system with best recycling of waste products including plastic generated in that city. Indore has constituted separate teams for door-to-door garbage collection, commercial streets and industrial areas separately.
The trucks carrying waste are monitored with a web-based application to check whether the vehicles deployed for garbage collection are carrying the waste from starting to end point. In case if any vehicle fails to dump garbage at the designated place, IMC officials receive an alert and immediately they take action to ensure the vehicles reach the dumping yard and the treatment plant.
As Indore maintained best practices for waste segregation at source by segregating wet and dry waste separately, he said Indore is also generating Rs 2.5 crore revenue annually by production of biogas using waste. It has also set up construction, demolition waste plants.
Corporator MV Ramprasad appealed to the MCC and all corporators to strive to develop the city on the lines of Indore which has adopted best practices in waste management. He said the waste segregation at source must be done in all households as well as the role of pourakarmikas in dumping the dry and wet waste separately must be strictly monitored as it is not happening in Mysuru properly.
Corporator KV Sridhar said that people were fined for dumping waste haphazardly in Indore, but MCC officials are not taking strict action against dumping garbage in drainages, parks, roadside and vacant places. Another corporator BV Manjunath too urged to penalise citizens for dumping waste in open places.