What are the challenges faced in waste management in the city?
Educating households and public in general is a big challenge. Davanagere Municipal Corporation is creating awareness about cleanliness and hygiene through street plays, distributing pamphlets and through door to door canvassing. Yet we have not been successful in clearing the garbage through door to door collection and local collection point model. People are throwing garbage into open gutters or in open places and littering around.
What are the various Solid Waste Management Programmes adopted by the Corporation?
We ensure that there is door to door collection, secondary point collection –the waste collected from households has to be accumulated in iron containers set up at the corner of the streets and finally, transported to the yard, which is located 8km away from the city. The yard spanning an area of 22 acres, is compounded and fully protected.
Other initiatives include Vermiculture through which the waste is converted in to manure. This process takes 30 days. Over 120 metric tonnes of waste is generated per day. Majority of this is the plastic waste, which is collected by rag pickers and the remaining garbage goes to the yard.
In the pit method, a pit is dug in the dimension of 4x4x4 and the STP pipe with HDPE plastic sheet is laid at the bottom to make leaching tank. After collecting the leaches through pipeline, the waste in the pit is filled with Earth. For the past five years, we have not opened any pit.
As a part of its eco-friendly initiatives, DMC is also going to set up a waste to energy plant in Davanagere city. A Detailed Project Report (DPR) on the Methanization Plant would be submitted to the State Government shortly for approval. DPR would be assessed for its feasibility by the State Government appointed technical committee. Once approved, an open tender would be floated for private agencies to participate in the bidding process.
What are the various industrial wastes generated and how is it disposed of?
The major industry in the district are rice mills, which generates ash and husk as major wastes. Husk is used as a boiler feed and ash in brick manufacturing industries. The hazardous waste generated by two wire manufacturing industries are ETP sludge containing chromium and nickel, which is treated and disposed at the treatment storage and disposal facility at Dabaspet Industrial Area in Tumkur District of Karnataka. This is managed by Ramky Enviro Engineers Pvt Ltd and monitored by Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB).
Has the corporation taken up mechanised cleaning for roads?
The Corporation has not outsourced mechanical cleaning of roads. We have one tractor mounted sweeping machine operated and maintained by the Corporation itself.
What are the challenge areas or requirements to maintain hygiene and sanitation in the city?
Challenges:
- Removal of encroachments on drains by households
- Public non-cooperation for door-to-door collection and segregation of waste
- Improper dumping of waste by public in drains and open areas
- Control of stray animal
- Extraction of work from aged and female sanitary workers
Requirements:
- Full staff as per C and R rules
- Proper infrastructure like underground drains network
- Creating intensive awareness programmes among the public
What are the eco-friendly initiatives adopted to maintain the Green Economy concept, in line with UN Environment Programme theme this year?
The Corporation boasts of 198 parks, where roadside saplings are planted every year to fulfil the obligation of conserving environment. We are planning 15,000 saplings to be planted in the near future. In order to make Davanagere slum-free place, the government will soon implement Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojana as a part of its policy initiative to achieve a clean environment. More than 200,000 saplings are being planted at the landfill site.