The Hindu Business Line : An initiative to get rid of solid wastes

Hyderabad June 13 The menace of solid waste has become the biggest challenge for urban civic bodies. Sheer volume of solid waste they have to manage every day and huge costs involved to carry out the job is a Herculean task for the cash-starved municipalities.

But an evolving model, which is being worked out in several municipalities across the country, of public-private partnership engaging small enterprises, is showing good results, according to Dr Sanjay K Gupta, Project Director of USAID's GMED-India (Growth Mobilisation for Enterprise Development).

GMED initiative

The three-year GMED initiative, which will come to a close next year, is aimed at handholding municipalities in building capacities to develop public-private partnerships.

"It helps in achieving sanitation, while generating livelihood opportunities," he pointed out.

Dr Gupta was here to take part in a daylong workshop for municipal executives on `Implementation of solid waste management in APUSP (Andhra Pradesh Urban Services for the Poor) towns - Experiences, challenges and strategies'.

"Small enterprises as against big contractors and organisations will play a major role in this regard. This will encourage competition among small enterprises. We are opposed to creating monopolies in this arena," he said.

"The biggest advantage is that this model offers livelihood opportunities which would not have been there in the absence of small enterprises," he said.

Stating that door-to-door collection (of solid waste) was being done in over 67 per cent of households (in municipal areas), he said GMED initiative proposed to work with at least 10 out of the 42 APUSP municipalities in building capacities.

Andhra Pradesh is among the five States (Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh) where GMED is involved in evolving PPP models in this area.

More Stories on : Environment | Andhra Pradesh

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