Waste segregation: HDMC decides against penalising residents until Covid-19 crisis blows over

Kishan Singh Bhorde | TNN | Apr 15, 2020, 04:20 IST

Hubballi: Against a backdrop of rising Covid-19 cases in Dharwad district, civic agencies are contemplating relaxing a few rules so as to not add to the problems of the citizens. To this end, the Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (HDMC) has decided against penalising residents for not handing segregated waste to the pourakarmikas until the crisis blows over. The civic agency has amended its bylaws to this effect, and is awaiting ratification from the Union ministry of urban development.
Civic workers deployed to gather waste from households in the twin cities collect dry waste on Wednesday and Sunday. However, residents have not been cooperating with the pourakarmikas in this initiative, prompting the civic workers to divide the carriage of the tippers into two compartments where wet and dry waste are dumped separately, said a HDMC officer.
Door-to-door collection of waste has resulted in mounds of garbage gradually disappearing from the side of the roads across Hubballi-Dharwad. However, the comprehensive solid waste management (SWM) plan envisaged by the civic agency entailed complete segregation of waste at the source, which would subsequently enable them to use the wet waste for generation of compost.
The decision to penalise residents was taken after repeated pleas to residents to segregate waste failed to yield the desired result.
Executive engineer in HDMC’s SWM wing Vijaykumar R said that the civic agency had launched the comprehensive plan, which the officials were convinced was the only possible long-term solution for effective disposal of garbage in Hubballi-Dharwad - on average, the twin cities generate 400 tonnes of waste every day. “Currently, the auto tippers are continuing the door-to-door collection of garbage. But HDMC is struggling to effectively implement the next stage of the plan, which is the generation of compost, and electricity using wet waste,” Vijaykumar told TOI.
The senior official added that the HDMC was contemplating drafting new rules that would empower pourakarmikas to refuse collection of waste from households where garbage was not segregated.
“We have earmarked five acres for a dump yard, where we are looking to set up the compost unit. We have already procured the machines, but we need to assemble them in order at the unit before we can start the process,” said another HDMC officer.
The HDMC has already set up a stationary compactor unit in Hubballi, where the auto-tippers will dump the waste collected at the households. This, the officer added, would help save the auto tippers time otherwise spent visiting dump yards.