Guwahati's smart city initiative receives a new lease with substantial funding for innovative solid waste management projects under CITIIS 2.0
The shattered Guwahati Smart City dream looks like it will revive again as after one year of the Guwahati Smart City Limited (GSCL) stopped getting funds from the Centre, it will now get ₹145 crore under smart city mission 2.0 for solid waste management project. The funds will be provided to the Guwahati Smart City Limited, but the implementing agency will be the Guwahati Municipal Corporation.
To promote the reuse and recycling of waste generated in urban areas, Union minister of housing and urban affairs Hardeep Singh Puri in March 2024 announced the names of 18 cities that will get ₹1,496 crore as part of the CITIIS (city investments to innovate, integrate and sustain) 2.0 challenge.
The cities are Agartala, Agra, Bareilly, Belagavi, Bilaspur, Guwahati, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Madurai, Muzzafarpur, New Town Kolkata, Panaji, Rajkot, Srinagar, T’thapuram, Thanjavur, Udaipur, and Ujjain.
A source in GSCL talking to GPlus said, “Under CITIIS 2.0, cities will implement projects promoting a circular solid waste management economy for the next four years,” adding that GSCL will work with the Guwahati Municipal Corporation and implement the project for which Centre will provide around ₹145 crore. But how will GMC utilise the money?
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GMC will spend the money in around six projects which is expected to be invested for integrated solid waste management. The six projects are refuse-derived fuel (RDF) cum compost plant (₹50 crore), construction and demolition-based processing plant (₹15 crore), refuse transport station-cum-material recovery facility (₹18 crore), boom barriers in Guwahati rivers (₹10 crore), vehicle tracking and management system (₹8 crore) and human resource management system (₹2 crore). Some budget will be also kept for communication and awareness, a source in the GMC said.
One RDF –cum-compost plant of 150 tonne capacity is already constructed in Belortal and is now under trial run. The RDF compost plant under CITIIS 2.0 will be of 200 tonnes capacity and will be constructed at Belortal area. It will produce RDF and manure which will be utilised in many industries like cement.
As a first in Guwahati, the ₹15 crore construction and demolition based processing plant will be recycling construction wastes and produce other construction materials like blocks etc, said the source in the GMC. The land for the plant is yet to be identified.
Refuse transport station cum material recovery facility will be a station where refuse materials can be easily collected and recycled. The location of the station will be most likely Odalbakhra, said the GMC source.
Boom barriers in the rivers of Guwahati for a budget of ₹10 crore, will actually put barriers in the Bharalu and Bahini rivers where garbage will be collected and automatically collected. At present the GMC has put barriers in Bharalu, but the garbage has to be collected manually.
The GMC is also planning to go “smart” and “techno savvy” with garbage collection vehicles tracking and management system. “It will be an app-based mechanism and everyone including the residents and all the vehicles involved in garbage collection will be connected,” said a GMC source adding that the garbage collecting vehicles can be tracked. At present the door-to-door garbage collection vehicles are not regular, so once the residents know the vehicle details they can track the vehicles and if vehicles are not on time it can be reported. All vehicles taking garbage to dump in Belortal will also be tracked so the private parties involved in the work also can be tracked. The system will systemise the entire process of garbage collection in the city.
The GMC will also develop a human resource management system in the budget of ₹2 crore where all the GMC officials including all private hires parties will be managed and trained accordingly.
The GMC has already made the plan for all above mentioned projects and once the GSCL receives the funds from the Centre, the work will start, said the GMC source.
It needs to be mentioned that door to door garbage collection was never a successful imitative by GMC and it can just be hoped that the Rs. 145 crore provided by the centre for solid waste management is not wasted.
New plan for door-to-door garbage collection
The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has planned a new mechanism for door-to-door garbage collection after previous exercises involving ward committee, non-government organisations (NGOs) and organisations like Ramky did not bring the appropriate results. Now GMC will do away with ward committees or NGOs collecting door-to-door garbage but according to the new plan, this time the city will be divided into 18 divisions and every division will have a private entity taking responsibility of collecting door-to-door garbage according to what the GMC has planned.
A source in GMC said that a tender has been floated to invite bids from 18 private entities to manage the door-to-door garbage collection.
Last year out of 60 wards, door-to-door garbage collection in eight wards were undertaken by the ward development committee (WDC) headed by the ward councillor, new NGOs were appointed in 25 wards. Previous NGOs were retained in 26 wards and one ward – ward number 48 - was considered as the model ward. Ironically the garbage collection process was still not successful.
Now 60 wards will be divided into 18 packages and in every package there will be 3 to 4 wards. The private operators who will be hired will manage the garbage collection of one package. The tendering and appointment process will take some time and the new system will start before Durga Puja, said the GMC source.