HERALD: How did you bring about this change in the city of Indore which is now the cleanest city in India?
ROHAN SAXENA: The Indore Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) project started in 2015 and things were really bad then. There were lot of issues related to solid waste management and many PILs were pending in the High Court. We went for an intensive analysis and went through a high-level of micro planning which took us around 6-8 months just to prepare the plan. The implementation on ground started somewhere in mid 2016 and took us about 18 months to implement the entire plan and then we went on to improve upon it. The entire end-to-end solution was implemented in less than two years.
HERALD: How did you manage to educate the Indore residents because their contribution and support was vital for this success?
RS: We strengthened the capacity of Municipal Corporation as we lacked resources, commitments, expertise etc for disposal of solid waste. We procured new vehicles, efficient machinery and systems to manage solid waste. Once we were capable for handling we went for rigorous training of staff of Municipal Corporation which also included their high officials. Then we committed that we will be able to deliver our services on time. For the first six months we did not expect anything out of the citizens of Indore. Once the system was established and deeply enrooted then we involved around six NGOs with us and we had a team of 600 young boys and girls who were assigned areas and a garbage collection vehicle. These ambassadors visited each and every household in their area and apprised the residents about the mission through personal interaction. It started in 2016 and it continues even today. Now the mindset of Indore residents has changed.
HERALD: Collection of waste is relatively easy as compared to the disposal. How did you manage that?
RS: It has been a stage wise process. For the first year we concentrated only on collection as we wanted to improve our collection efficiency. For transportation we had ten ultra modern transport vehicles. So from the end of second year we started looking more on the processing part of the solid waste. There was a two-pronged strategy as the processing was done in a centralised manner in 2017 and since 2018 we went for decentralised processing. For dry waste we used centralised processing and for wet waste we used decentralised processing. Out of the 500 tonnes of wet waste we produce about 50-60 tonnes of compost daily which is being sold at subsidised rates to the nearby farmers and all gardens are being maintained by this compost. The gas generated is used to fuel the public transport system of Indore. Secondly, from 2017 all schools, hospitals, hotel etc were mandated to process wet waste inside their premises. It was a law and around 600 of such establishments are doing so now. Also, around 50,000 household are processing their wet waste inside their home. It is basically linking of services and deliveries.
HERALD: Before 2015 how did Indore look as compared to 2020?
RS: Before we started it was chaos. The services were outsourced to a company which failed to deliver. The city was a garbage dump with more than 2000 self-made garbage dropping points and it was not lifted for days together. Today Indore is a bin-free city and it was the first in the country. There are no open bins, no dumping pointed as all garbage is collected from home. The city is absolutely clean. All legacy waste is cleaned up and that dumping site has been converted into a city forest and the process is still on and by the end of this year the city forest will come up. We also have ultra modern mechanised sweeping machines which cleans the road and its surroundings. We sweep 500 kilometers of road every night using 14 machines. Now there is no dust and the RSPM levels have gone down by 50 per cent and diseases have gone down by 40 per cent.
HERALD: What support do you receive from the state or the central government?
RS: The regular support which is expected. The sustainability of the system depend on the recovery of the user charges and from 2018 we have started collecting the user charges and we are able to finance our operation through this plus the regular support which we get from the state government as apart for the SBM initiative as applicable to all other municipal corporations in the country.
HERALD: What was the total cost on this project?
RS: Cost varies. Our recurring cost per annum is around Rs 140-150 crore out of which Rs 96-97 crore goes only for salaries. So the rest of the system works only on Rs 40-50 crore. From public we could recover around 70-75 crore last year as service charges. We charge Rs 100 from every household for collection and from commercial establishments we charge from Rs 450 to Rs 45,000 per month depending on volume of the garbage generated. The commercial establishments pay in advance and the common people and household also supports us.
HERALD: What should Goa learn from Indore?
RS: We were fortunate to host around 500 major cities of the world and about 40 countries participated in it from world over and even Goa participated in it. We have come up with a model which is customised to Indore and this model can be adopted in any city customised to their needs. Goa has lots of tourist and floating population is very high so they need to concentrate more on addressing the solid waste management particularly from the beaches of Goa. We will be more than happy to help Goa with this.
