Pune: PCMC to not lift wet garbage from 700 ‘big’ housing societies from October 2

PCMC has asked the societies to segregate wet and dry waste and convert wet waste into compost within their premises.

Pune | Updated: September 22, 2022 07:17 AM IST

3 min read

A sanitary worker segregating the garbage (Express/file)

From October 2, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) will not lift wet waste from as many as 700 residential societies that generate more than 100 kg waste. Instead, the civic body has asked the societies to segregate wet and dry waste and convert wet waste into compost within their premises.

PCMC Deputy Municipal Commissioner (health) Ajay Charthankar told The India Express, “We will not lift wet garbage from big housing societies that generate more than 100 kg waste per day, irrespective of the number of flats in the society.”

There are over 5,000 residential housing societies in PCMC’s jurisdiction. Of these, around 700 have been classified as ‘bigger’ residential societies which generate more than 100 kg garbage every day. “Of these 700 societies, a little over 200 have set up their waste processing units. The rest are yet to take action despite being told several times,” he said, adding, “We have been sending notices to these housing societies since 2017. Notices were sent in 2018, 2019 and even in the last two years.”

He said in 2016, it was made mandatory under the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 for housing societies to segregate dry and wet waste and process them at their end. “After the rules came into force, the builders started providing space inside housing societies to convert wet waste into compost. However, despite the space, several housing societies failed to set up their own wet waste processing units,” he said.

Charthankar further said that societies set up before 2016 can either make space for setting up wet waste processing plants or can handover their wet waste to private parties. “These private parties charge some fees for converting the wet waste into compost. There is no capping on their fee. In turn, the societies can either use the compost for their gardens or can sell it off. The choice is theirs,” he said.

He added that societies that face problems in setting up waste processing plants or face issues in using the compost will be provided necessary help. “We are conducting workshops and counselling sessions for housing societies. We are also contemplating handing over the task of converting wet waste to compost to self help groups. This will help the bigger housing societies in finding quick redressal to their problem of wet garbage,” he said.

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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