Mangaluru: City Corporation Commissioner Hephsiba Rani Korlapati held a press meet at the MCC conference hall, Lalbagh here on February 28.
Addressing the mediapersons Hephsiba said, “We need to bring awareness among the people in waste management. The source segregation issue has become critical. In this regard, we need to hold awareness programmes to educate the public.”
“If it is possible to collect dry, wet and sanitary waste separately, most of the source segregation problem will be solved and for this, we need to concentrate on apartments. Antony Waste management company was supposed to start the work by January 1 but due to some technical reasons, they have started from February 1. We have given the target and asked them to start the full fledged work.” She also said, “Being a commissioner, it is my prime responsibility to manage waste. Waste management is a reality; everyday the waste should be cleared and processed. If the waste is not cleared even for a day, it will create problems. Our job is to study how to collect, transport and process waste efficiently. This cannot be done by a single person. This has to be done in every ward and every house hold. We need to do some micro planning on how the waste can be collected and disposed effectively.”
She further said that 10 more primary collection vehicles are expected to be available from March 10. One desilting machine out of the 2 proposed is expected to be available on March 5. An Auto-driven sweeping machine and 2 cycle driven sweeping machines are expected to be available by March 1. All primary and secondary transportation vehicles are fitted with GPS. Online accessibility will allow vehicle movement to be tracked. 8 CCTV cameras are installed at the compost plant to monitor the weighbridge recording as well as unloading area.
Amount of garbage littering has come down drastically and is expected to be brought to a bare minimum in the next 2 months. 90% door to door garbage collection coverage to be achieved within March 15. Source segregation to be initiated from March 15, are planned to be addressed in 2 ways – Ward level: 2 wards Mannagudda and Mangaladevi have been selected on pilot basis, and Generator level: All residential apartments to be covered. All street sweeping staff deployed will be equipped with 120 L bins. The process has already been initiated and is expected to be completed by March 5. Closed lorry-tippers for collection of littering spots and street swept wastes will be deployed from 1st March completely phasing out usage of open lorries. 3 cubic meter and 4.5 cubic meter containers have been phased out.
MCC will be making use of Swachh Bharat logo in all its office correspondence letters from 1st March. Postal department and Lead bank people will also be involved to follow this system. Activities such as street plays, painting competitions will be carried out from March. Intensive IEC activities are planned to be carried out from March 10.
Process of collection of SWM Cess along with property tax has been initiated. Waste generators are no more required to pay monthly user free charges to the door to door collectors as followed earlier.
Mayor Mahabala Marla said that CCTV cameras have been installed in Pachanady to monitor unloading of the waste during night time. “If there are no strict laws, people will violate the rules. If people fail to follow the rules, we will start imposing penalty on the violators.”
Corporator D K Ashok, Health Officer Manjaiah and others were also present.