The Kerala State Waste Management Project, aimed at improving solid waste collection, disposal and recycling, will be launched soon, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has said.
He said this on Saturday during his COVID-19 briefing. An all-party meeting that was convened to discuss the project lent full support to the project, he added.
The project cost would be ₹2,100 crore, with the World Bank providing ₹1,470 crore and the State government pitching in with the rest. It would have three main components—technical support, improvement in basic infrastructure related to waste management, and environment-friendly recycling. The Suchitwa Mission would be the nodal agency, looking mainly at the first two aspects and the local bodies would have the responsibility of waste management at the ground level.
Ninety three urban local bodies and 183 gramapanchayats located in close proximity to these urban local bodies would be the beneficiaries of this project, which was spread over a period of six years.
“Solid waste collection and processing are now being handled fully by the local bodies. In the past four years, 3,500 Haritha Karma Sena units, 888 material collection centres and 151 resource recovery centres have been set up. We have one of the best waste management systems in the country. However, we have a lot of room for improvement in solid waste collection. There are not enough mechanisms to treat bio-waste at homes and at source. We also need a project for treating all of the non-biodegradable waste. For this, the local bodies need support, which this project will provide,” said the CM.
He said there existed a stark difference in the capacities of various local bodies in waste processing. For the State to achieve its aims in waste management, this would have to be addressed. The annual allocations for waste management were insufficient and the World Bank-funded project would make up for this. A consultancy would be selected through global bidding for carrying out the initial studies and for overseeing the implementation.
