Friday, 13 August 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
At the times when proper garbage disposal remains a big concern for all urban local bodies (ULBs), the Rudraprayag municipality has set an example of effectively tackling the garbage disposal issue in Uttarakhand. For the past three years, Rudraprayag municipality is not just working for proper garbage disposal but also towards making it a revenue source for the municipality. According to the executive officer (EO) of Rudraprayag municipality, Seema Rawat, the civic body started selling the non-biodegradable garbage collected through door to door collection from the year 2019. “We earned revenue of Rs 19,000 in the year 2019 and Rs 87,000 in 2020.
This year, we have already earned about Rs five lakh by selling the non-biodegradable waste collected from across the city and this will go over Rs 10 lakh by the end of the year,” stated the EO. She revealed that Rudraprayag municipality had to work hard to reach at the level where they can sell maximum inorganic waste. “We conducted various campaigns to raise awareness among locals to keep their dry and wet garbage separately and distributed two dustbins to every household in the city for the same purpose. Even the sanitation workers were ordered to not accept the mixed dry and wet garbage that they still follow,” said Rawat. She also disclosed that all the dumpsters have been removed from the city and everybody is asked to dispose of their garbage through the door to door collection. “We constantly encouraged people to dispose of their garbage through door to door service and penalised those who were found to be disposing of the garbage in open areas.
This is the reason that all the garbage collected by the sanitation workers is now segregated at source which makes it easier for us to sell the non-biodegradable waste,” said Rawat. She informed that the municipality sells seven to eight metric tonnes of inorganic waste to a company in Rishikesh every month that generates the revenue of about Rs 80,000 per month which is used in the development projects of the city. She said biodegradable waste is used to make compost which will be sold soon commercially too.
