Bins and vans to manage Shillong’s wastes

SHILLONG, MARCH 19: Over 60,000 households in Shillong will be given bins to improve the waste management system in an around the city under the Centrally-funded North Eastern Region Capital City Development Investment Programme (NERCCDIP).

Urban affairs minister Ampareen Lynghdoh told the Assembly on Tuesday that her department has already allotted 50 municipal garbage bins and 100 litter bins and identified different communities that could be part of the process of managing solid wastes that includes segregation of degradable and non-degradable wastes.

“We have already targeted 60,000 households which will be distributed bins in the second trench of the NERCCDIP,” said Lyngdoh in her reply to a query raised by UDP legislator from Nongthymmai. She said a three-pronged approach to waste management will be adopted in the state, including Shillong and adjoining areas. The first phase, she added, involved carrying out several awareness programmes with the concerned Dorbars.

When UDP Mawprem legislator Paul Lyngdoh expressed concern over the paucity of vehicles to carry waste, the minister said her department would provide more vehicles and also increase the frequency of garbage collections, especially in the commercial areas where dumping is very rampant.

“We have spent Rs 266.5 lakh per year just to maintain waste management services in the areas…About 231 sweepers, 66 mazdoors, 61 waste collection staff, including drivers, have been employed besides 22 vehicles, one hydraulic waste compactor, 12 trucks with hydraulic tipping facilities, 4 open trucks, 1 tractor, 3 excavator and 3 cease pool cleaners (have been pressed into service),” she said.

Earlier, Ardent Basaiawmoit, the HSPDP legislator from Nongkrem, took umbrage to the remarks of the urban affairs minister who sought to blame the people of Nongkrem for littering the streams in the area. An angry Basaiawmoit asked the minister to desist from blaming the people of Nongkrem without any proof and instead provide a satisfactory response to his query on steps being taken to segregate waste at the source. (By Our Reporter)