GHMC goes all out to keep Hyderabad clean
Hyderabad: When its boundaries are expanding, when its people and buildings are growing, can the garbage in a happening city be far behind?
From the whereabouts of 2,500 metric tons of garbage a day in 2015, Hyderabad today generates 6,500 metric tons of waste every day. And just as the mountains of trash forked out each day from the city’s homes, hotels and business enterprises get bigger, so does the task of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).
The daily challenge of managing these mammoth piles of garbage is taken head-on by around 22,000 staffers, who use some of the most advanced machinery for the strenuous task.
This manpower and machinery are apart from the sweeping machines that are pressed into service on the main roads in the late hours and also in the early hours of the day; the cleaning by Comprehensive Road Maintenance Programme (CRMP) agencies who are responsible for sanitation on main roads in addition to their primary responsibility i.e. road restoration; and an outsourcing agency that is entrusted with the responsibility of cleanliness around monuments.
2,500 SATs, 650 tippers
The process of garbage disposal includes Swachh Auto Tippers (SAT) visiting houses to pick up garbage to transport it to transfer stations before dumping it in the Jawahar Nagar dumpyard on the outskirts of the city. To extend the reach of door-to-door garbage collection, the GHMC recently procured 650 tippers to add to the present fleet of 2,500 SATs.
While household garbage is collected using SATs, roads are cleaned by sweepers, mostly in non-traffic hours in the night and early mornings. The sweepers are monitored by Sanitary Field Assistants (SFA) and the overall cleaning activity is supervised by the assistant medical officer of health (AMOH) of each GHMC circle and the Head of the Department.
New approach
The growing mountains of garbage in the city that is home to a booming population of over one crore people, saw the civic body changing its approach over the years, from distributing twin bins to setting up waste-to-energy plants and making operational an exclusive debris recycling plant. It has now sent mandates to housing societies to practise on-site composting of the waste to end the chain process of garbage disposal.
The plastic menace
Several cleanliness drives and desilting operations revealed the massive extent of single-use plastic products in the city. Plastic was choking nalas, resulting in urban flooding. To curb the plastic menace, the GHMC’s Directorate of Enforcement Vigilance & Disaster Management warned manufacturing units and imposed penalties on people raising flex banners. This is besides several awareness campaigns to discourage people from using plastic.
More in the bin
Plans are under way to improve sanitation activities in commercial stretches. Ensuring installation of twin bins for dry and wet waste, increasing garbage collection by deploying additional manpower and machinery are part of proposed activities. GHMC has also decided to impose penalties on commercial establishments that dump garbage in public places.
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