VRISHANK MAHATME
vrishank@herald-goa.com
Minister of State (IC) Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri applauded the scientific technology used at the country’s first solid waste management plant and asked other States to replicate the Goa model in handling garbage.
“Goa is one state which has made very impressive strides in solid waste management. The State has a very good project of converting waste to energy and it needs to be replicated throughout India,” Hardeep Singh Puri said on Saturday during his recent visit to Goa.
The ultra modern solid waste management plant at Saligao is the state-of-the-art-facility based on mechanical biological treatment process with proper segregation, recovery of recyclables and bio-methanation technology. Comprising of three components – material segregation and recycling centre, treatment of wet fraction via bio-methanation, and composting section and landfill area; also generates electricity.
Speaking to Herald, Managing Director and CEO of the Imagine Panaji Smart City Development Ltd (IPSCDL), Swayandipta Pal Choudhuri said, “The visit was aimed at a number of issues including institutional, financial to progress and genuinely describing wherever we were having issues and how we have tackled them. So these were kind of lessons they wanted, including the solid waste management plan. It’s not the technology we are using but the model around it the financial model.”
“The waste management plan is a successful case study which is not available in other states. The aim and idea of the visit was to evaluate it, understanding it so that these models can be replicated in other states across India. Goa being of its size is very self contained state and it works like a city state model. Also the ministry was very keen to see the quick transition despite the issues,” added Choudhuri.
In terms of choosing to launch the ‘Protocol for Star Rating of Garbage-Free Cities’ in Goa, Choudhuri said that the ministry was happy with the states’ work with the Solid Waste Management Project. The minister, along with the secretary, took keen interest and equally eager to encourage everybody as a token for which they wanted to do it from Goa and most importantly from the office of IPSCDL.
“The ministry was keen to pass on the message of how keen and committed the union government is to make the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mission of Swacch Bharat a success. It is no more a government mission it a Jana Andolan”, he added.
The star-rating initiative, developed by the Swachh Bharat Mission Urban will be rating cities on a 7-star rating system based on multiple cleanliness indicators for solid waste management, which will include Door-to-Door collection, bulk generator compliance, source segregation, sweeping, scientific processing of waste, scientific land filling, plastic waste management, construction and demolition management, dump remediation and citizen grievance redressal system, etc. Under this scheme, the cities should also be ODF before it could be given rating of 3 stars or above.
