After door-to-door collection scheme, Gzb civic agency plans to ban all private waste collectors
The Ghaziabad municipal corporation intends to ban private garbage collectors completely within the next two or three months, officials said on Tuesday, adding that they initiated action against such collectors in the Vasundhara zone, where they were met with resistance.
“Since we started our doorto-door activities, we have decided to ban private waste collectors. The experiment was initiated in the Vasundhara zone where we were met with resistance. However, we plan to ban all such garbage collectors within the next two or three months,” said Mahendra Singh Tanwar, Ghaziabad municipal commissioner.
Ghaziabad generates about 1,200 metric tonnes of daily solid waste which the corporation has started processing into dry and wet waste with the help of four garbage processing units in the city. Officials said that door-to-door collection activities have also started in the 100 residential wards in the city and they have started levying user charges for collection.
The corporation has also started sending bills to households for the years 2020-21 and 2021-22. The corporation has a fleet of about 500 door-to-door collection vehicles which are deployed across five residential zones in its areas of jurisdiction.
“It is observed that private waste collectors generally arrive in the morning and take away garbage from households. To counter this, we have chalked a micro plan for our door-to-door collection vehicles that have been asked to reach localities at a specific time. It is not practical for these vehicles to reach all the households at the same
time. But we are trying to have them arrive at fixed timings so that residents can easily dispose of their household waste,” Tanwar added.
Councillors, on the other hand, said that banning private waste collectors would not be easy for the corporation and
they will have to improve their services in order to dissuade households from giving their daily waste to private collectors.
“Phasing out a system that took several years to develop will not be easy. Poor people who collect waste from households every morning are employed as part of this chain. It is our intent that these poor people should be roped into the corporation’s waste collection activities so that their livelihood is not affected. Otherwise, there would be resistance,” said Rajendra Tyagi, councillor from Raj Nagar.
According to estimates, waste collection activities by private collectors generate about ₹7-8 crore annually and employ an estimated 2,000 people.
“Further, the corporation must improve its waste collection services on professional lines so that city gets a better image and also does well in the Swachh Survekshan,” he added.
The city, during last year’s Swachh Survekshan, ended up in the 18th position in the category of cities with a population between 1 and 4 million. In 2020, the city secured the 19th position, while in 2019, it secured the 13th rank.