Having learnt lessons from the past, the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) focussed on source segregation to secure better ranking in Swachh Survekshan 2020. A large number of women of Self Help Groups (SHGs), associated with the GVMC, and officials from the Urban Community Development (UCD) wing played a crucial role by creating awareness about source segregation and processing the wastes by home composting among women. Their effort helped the civic body achieve high marks to some extent.

According to GVMC Additional Commissioner V. Sanyasi Rao, the civic body has achieved full marks in source segregation. “Initially, we had claimed that we are good in practising source segregation in ‘Documentation’ category. When the team came for inspection, they interacted randomly with the public as part of ‘Direct Observation’ and were satisfied with the response,” he said.

In the SS 2019, the GVMC failed to get good score in source segregation. Later, the UCD wing of the GVMC and the Public Health Department created awareness on separation of dry, wet, medical and other wastes before giving it to the sanitary staff. The Self Help Groups (SHGs) working with UCD also promoted home composting techniques on a large-scale.

“Classes were conducted by the SHGs to teach women the benefits of using household wastes to grow flowers and vegetables. Last year, there were around 1,200 women practising home composting. But this year, the number has increased to nearly 60,000,” a senior official of the UCD said .

N. Revathi, an SHG member, said the idea was to minimise wastes by utilising kitchen wastes to make compost.

GVMC Commissioner G. Srijana said that first they had concentrated on segregation at source and later on processing of the segregated waste properly.“A huge part of that processing is home composting. The GVMC also has a fully functional Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste processing plant. The waste-to-biogas plant, bio-manure plant, bio-mining project and waste-to-energy plant, which are at various stages, helped the corporation,” she said.

The GVMC has begun the exercise to be among the top five cities in SS 21, for which it has started to focus on key areas. A coordination meet was organised on the SS 2021 and an overview of areas to be improved in order to secure the top rank were discussed. Focus is on door-to-door garbage collection, segregation of waste, completion of various projects, improving in documentation and a few others.