AHMEABAD: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is now going all out to emulate the ‘Indore model’ in its effort to climb up the Swachh Survekshan rankings and rid Ahmedabad of ‘visible garbage’. To begin with, the standing committee of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) on Thursday resolved to employ more than 500 sanitation squad members to teach citizens to segregate waste. They will accompany door-to-door garbage collection vans for three months. AMC officials claim that a theme song will be played by the garbage vehicles, wherever they halt, to pep residents for the cleanest city tag.
There’s a popular saying in
Indore that “people fear the yellow IMC garbage patrol vehicles more than the police vehicles.’ The sanitation inspectors or ‘darogah ji’ in these jeeps has powers of fining litterbugs anywhere between Rs 100 to Rs 1 lakh on the spot. Indore’s ‘Sanitation Satyagraha’ began with a PIL in 2015 when the high court pulled up the city administration for the filth all around the city. It took a strong mayor and a fully supportive municipal commissioner to begin identifying 1,800 spots that needed to be cleaned and re-mediated. Indore spent close to Rs 60 crore to
spruce up its solid waste management systems.
A senior AMC official who recently visited Indore told TOI, “The garbage bins were taken off the streets first. Earlier, in the absence of effective door-to-door services, people dumped their garbage into plastic bags and flung them in the direction of the public bins.” He added, “The result was that more garbage was spilled near bins, and stray animals looking for food made the place filthier.”
Firstly, garbage collection services for residential and commercial buildings were separated. A team of 400 Swachhta Preharis accompanied door-to-door collection vans and cycle carts for two months constantly and taught residents to segregate waste and even gave them tailor-made solutions.
Representative image
