Piyush Ranjan Rout
Civic authorities in Bhubaneswar must focus on creating garbage processing facilities to tackle the problem smartly and effectively
Garbage is ubiquitous in Bhubaneswar despite ongoing efforts by civic authorities to manage municipal waste; and the official figures of garbage generated are far from reality. The actual quantity is alarming and reflects the failure of plans to modernise municipal solid waste management taken half a decade back.
The only visible difference in waste management is that the task of collecting and relocating solid wastes has been entrusted with private operators. The result is that Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation spends more than half its revenue on waste management, that is, only on collection of garbage from streets and transporting it to dumping yards.
Even this process is not fail-safe and much of the garbage generated remains on streets, posing health hazards.
It is laudable that Bhubaneswar was named the cleanest city in eastern India and 24th among 73 cities according to a national survey conducted by the central government. It was also ranked first among the first 20 cities selected for implementation of the Smart City initiative.
However, municipal waste management in the city calls for innovation and modernisation. Bhubaneswar generates an estimated 300–400 tonnes of garbage every day. BMC says 90 per cent of this waste ends up in dumping yards. But the city does not have a centralised garbage processing facility.
The result is that over the years dumping yards have filled up, putting communities living close to these yards in great inconvenience. Recently, the residents of Daru Thenga raised objections to disposal of garbage near their village. And the civic body was reported to have promised that it would solve the issue within 21 days.
A visit to the site has convinced me that little has been done to ameliorate their plight. The villagers said they were opposed to garbage dumping but officials had promised them that it won’t affect their health and that youths would be provided with jobs at a proposed garbage processing plant.
But the village is now choked with smoke from burning garbage and stench of rotting wastes, and villagers have been driven to protesting against the dumping of garbage. The villagers say they were assured that the garbage would be buried to address the issues of smell and smoke.
Such action could address the issues temporarily, particularly with the arrival of the monsoon, but the gases that emanate from the dump will remain dangerous and the wastes will contaminate water in due course.
These villagers are not part of the problem of waste generation and have not benefited in any way by allowing the dump to come up. They are faced with health hazards and the promised jobs — most likely as sanitation labourers — are unlikely to lift their living standards much.
But why can’t Bhubaneswar process its waste within the city itself? There are technologies and strategies that are employed by global cities to process garbage. The garbage need not be taken far from the city for them to be processed and the city is not generating unmanageable quantities of garbage.
Certain cities have garbage processing units right in the middle of their busiest sections or tourist attractions. But their existence is barely noticeable.
A waste processing plant can be set up within the Town District Centre when Bhubaneswar becomes a Smart City. Then, perhaps, Bhubaneswar would truly show the nation that it has smart solutions to its garbage problem.
The author is an urban
planner based in Bhubaneswar.