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The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) along with SWACH, cooperative of wastepickers for door-to-door waste collection, have bagged an award which was handed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a representative of SWACH at a function in New Delhi.
At the Indian sanitation summit, the award to PMC and SWACH was received by Radhabai, field worker of SWACH, alongwith mayor Prashant Jagtap and municipal commissioner Kunal Kumar.
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In 2007, wastepickers in Pune came together to establish SWACH. It enabled their transition from wastepickers to service providers with 2,300 members carrying out door-to-door waste collection services to 4 lakh households in the city at an average fee of Rs 30 per month.
The PMC had a five-year agreement with SWACH in 2008 for the service to provide infrastructure, management costs, equipment, safety gear and welfare benefits to SWACH members. Now, a total of 2,700 wastepickers cover five lakh households in the PMC area.
