<p><em>Modi’s Swachh Bharat vision remains a far-fetched dream until critical issues in solid waste management are tackled<br><strong>By Monica Behura & Sonal Khetarpal</strong></em><br><br>India’s sprawling cities generate over 100 million tonnes of solid waste a year. Yet, estimates are that an alarming 40 per cent of municipal waste remains outright uncollected. <br><br>In most parts of the country, there is nothing by way of processing facilities, leaving municipalities to resort to the haphazard dumping of waste at landfills. Missing from this festering picture is the proper segregation of waste, storage facilities and recycling. The result: rising pollution and contamination as critical problems in solid waste management (SWM) cry out for a solution.<br><br>Realising the ongoing impact of waste on society and the environment in India, the government launched its Swachh Bharat mission last year. Its objective is to improve SWM practices leveraging modern technologies. The mission targets the achievement by 2018-19 of scientific SWM in 4,041 cities and towns impacting 30.6 crore people.<br><br><strong><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/AK-Sahu-mdm.jpg" style="width: 254px; height: 450px; float: right; margin: 4px;">Capacity Gaps</strong><br>While Swachh Bharat is an ambitious plan, its implementation is proving a challenge starting from the Centre and state policy level down to the municipalities. “There is a capacity gap at the municipal level,” says Ajay Pandey, partner at Thinkthrough Consulting, a consultancy firm on social development issues including SWM. “Poorly-managed urban waste is not just an environmental menace but an opportunity cost. Urban planners and the government must look at scaling up the waste to energy models.”<br><br>Growing urbanisation and industrialisation are leading to acute problems related to solid waste. In Delhi, 8,360 million tonnes (MT) of waste is emitted daily. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has projects in the pipeline to set up a plant for processing 2,000 MT of waste using methane hybrid gas technology, in Okhla, according to an official. Similarly, Bangalore emits 4,000 MT of waste everyday, but only 1,500 tonnes are recycled in waste management plants, while 2,500 MT still needs to be processed. Clearly, city municipalities are incapable of disposing and processing all urban waste.<br><br>Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike administrator P.M. Vijaybhaskar says, “The landfills are overflowing, creating health hazards in urban localities, so we have plans to invest Rs 400 crore on six waste processing units. We will collaborate with Hoteliers Association for a PPP project to recycle 100 tonnes of waste<br>into biogas.”<br><br><strong>Know-how Needed</strong><br>Barring a few progressive municipal corporations in India, all other local bodies lack relevant expertise to initiate the proper handling of solid waste. “These local bodies lack technical, managerial, administrative, financial resources, and adequate institutional arrangements,” says A. K. Sahu, president, National Solid Waste Association of India. “It requires coordination between departments and institutions, urban development department, PWD and the government,” he adds.<br><br>“One of the key challenges India is faceing today is an explosive increase in waste generation due to unplanned urbanisation, 50 per cent of which is biodegradable,” says Jaijit Bhattacharya, partner, Infrastructure & Government Services, KPMG India. Due to lack of segregation and other systemic woes, centralised waste management approaches have failed miserably. The government must ensure flexible institutional mechanisms for efficiency in decision making, according to other analysts.<br><br> </p><table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" style="width: 500px;"><tbody><tr><td><strong>POWER POTENTIAL<br><span style="color:#696969;">There is great scope for energy generation from garbage and fossil fuel displacement</span></strong></td></tr><tr><td><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/Waste-management-lrg.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 354px;"></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br>One of the major pain points is the non-availability of standard government guidelines on waste disposal. Vikas Guliani, vice-president, A2Z Infra Engineering, whose waste management division has brought down the cost of waste disposal substantially by indigenising the waste-to-energy technology, says, “Many bi-products and integrated business plans for additional revenue streams can work in the SWM business from sales of organic compost, refuse-derived fuel, waste to energy plants, provided they are well backed by the government’s financial grants and subsidies, support and framework. These stress areas make it difficult for companies like us to run the waste processing plants and W2E plants effectively and also to scale the business.”<br><br>Indian cities have generated 55.69 MT Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) so far this year, and 90 per cent of it goes to illegal landfills, causing epidemics and ground water contamination. As a result, dengue is at an all-time high with a 100 per cent jump since 2011, especially in southern India, where there is a total breakdown of the waste management machinery. If it is not solved, by 2025 the total land taken up by landfills could cross 1,000 sq. km and their greenhouse gas emissions alone could be higher than the total greenhouse gas emissions of Germany or Brazil.<br><br>Some environment experts believe that urban communities and households should be incentivised for segregating waste at source: waste management agencies should be rewarded on the basis of quality of output and penalised otherwise. Waste management firms have a separate set of issues with the government and believe they do not get the support they deserve. “The main reason for the difficulties faced by the waste management industry is that the municipal corporations do not want to pay the processing fees to private waste management companies,” says Irfan Furniturewala, chairman of Hanjer Biotech Energies, once a leading waste management firm, but with the mounting losses, the firm shut down its 16 plants in 2013. He says, “It is not in line with the global practice of the business. In fact, the urban development ministry should fund the municipal corporations so that they are able to pay the tipping fees. Second is the perception of the government with respect to the PPP agreement. It should see the private entrepreneurs as partners rather than the traditional relationship of contractor and a client.”<br><br><strong><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/Jaijit-mdm.jpg" style="width: 198px; height: 365px; float: right; margin: 4px;">Building It In</strong><br>Property developers are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of waste management facilities for their housing and commercial projects. For example, looking at the situation of the landfill sites in Delhi, Noida does not have a landfill site and so finds it difficult to dispose nearly 400 tonnes of garbage daily, which is dumped at two unofficial sites.<br><br>Many realty players like DLF, Gaursons India and Ansals API firms are now installing waste management systems inside residential and commercial properties built by them. “At Gaur City, waste will be segregated by residents in two bins and then picked up from each household to be put in the waste recycling machine that will convert the biodegradable waste into manure,” says Manoj Gaur, MD, Gaursons India. “This way, we will be able to control waste and also produce manure for the greenery inside the township.”<br><br>While segregation of waste is a major issue, some private firms are working on innovative solutions. Waste management firms like Green Nerds Solution have developed Automatic Garbage Mould technology in Karnataka. It enables segregation and processing of 5-50 tonnes of waste per day. “Till now, we have 35-40 successful installations across municipalities in Karnataka, says Nidhish Shetty, co-founder & director, Green Nerds Solution. “The reason we haven’t been able to scale is because every sale needs minimum four to five visits per municipal corporation, and we have to follow the complete tendering process for every order. What would have been better is if the government had a centralised bulk procurement model to support and scale innovative products. Currently, the only option is to look at scale in the private sector.”<br><br>Shetty believes that research on using indigenous technological solutions to dispose of waste should be done in India. Infrastructure and funding from the government and from venture capitalists should help to bring innovative technology solutions. Until then, the Swachh Bharat vision is buried under festering mountains of waste. <br><br>monica@businessworld.in @monicabehura<br>sonal@businessworld.in @sonalkhetarpal7<br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)</p>
