The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC), which is currently implementing on-site composting in 14,600 households of the city, is targeting to scale-up the programme to cover 48,000 households by December 2020.
As part of GVMC’s plan, a group of ward secretariat staff, volunteers and resource persons will train the public in techniques of wet waste composting. The civic body will extend the initiative to 101 resident welfare associations (RWAs) and 186 bulk waste generators to convert segregated wet waste into useful manure. This, and other programmes are being taken up as the civic body wants to better its rank and rating in the next cycle of Swachh Survekshan.
Vizag was adjudged the ninth cleanest city with over 10 lakh population in Swachh Survekshan-2020. The city got a 3-star rating in the garbage-free ratings in SS-2020 and now seeks to sustain its achievements and build on the progress.
As always, citizen participation will be a crucial component for Swachh Survekshan-2021 rankings. In an effort to take citizen participation a notch higher, the revised 2021 survey indicators will recognise citizen-led innovations including start-ups and Swachhata Champions and their contribution in reducing solid waste generation.
GVMC commissioner G Srijana said that the civic body is planning to implement various citizen-led innovation and activities. “Citizen participation will prove to be the backbone in improving the city’s rank in the upcoming Swachh Survekshan. The civic body urges the public to segregate waste at source into wet, dry and hazardous categories and hand it over for further processing and disposal.”