SMC hiring 6 agencies for project that first 2 miserably failed to execute

Srinagar, Mar 16: Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) is in the process of hiring six more NGOs for a job that two of its hired companies have failed to execute since 2016.
A must under Solid Waste management Rules 2016, segregation of waste at source has been, like the rest of the state, a non-starter in Srinagar.
After years of mismanagement, the corporation hired Chintan, a Delhi-based NGO, for segregation of waste at the source.
The NGO, however, could not deliver, pushing the municipal corporation to engage BASIX Municipal Waste Ventures, a company also based in Delhi, in 2017 to finish the project.
The company, too, disappointed the corporation.
The SMC, according to its Solid Waste Management Officer, Nazir Ahmad Baba, is now engaging more NGOs—this time six of them—to teach the households scientific segregation of garbage at source.
Baba, however, didn’t have a clear explanation to the disappointment resulting from the previous attempts.
“We allotted the project to them, but they did not do,” he said.
In 2018, he said, the SMC again asked for proposals from NGOs for the unfinished project.
“We got a good response and have finalised six NGOs, so far. We will soon allot the contract to them,” he said.
The corporation, Baba said, had offered Rs 20 per household to the NGOs, which he refused to name.
“Srinagar, as per 2011 census, has 1.78 lakh households. We plan to cover all of them,” he said.
“We have divided Srinagar into eight zones. These NGOs are expected to do capacity building in all of them. We are hopeful that the project will be a success and people will start segregating the garbage at source,” he said.
The project, as per Baba, is a one-year contract, during which the SMC would monitor NGOs performance on fortnightly or monthly basis.
“Our sweepers too need to be a trained. There is a provision that our staff, too, will be trained by the NGOs,” he said.
While segregation at source has been almost zero, the bodies concerned have not had enough success in scientifically disposing the tonnes of garbage the state produces daily.
Data, as fresh as January 31, shows that J&K is among the worst states in India when it comes to proper management of garbage, as hardly one per cent of 1,374 metric tonnes of it collected each day is scientifically processed.
The state, as per the data, is persistently flouting Solid Waste Management Rules 2016, which, primarily, call for waste segregation from the source.
About 1,072 of the 1,100 wards in the state do not segregate garbage at source.
The situation remains so even as the state already received Rs 10.90 crore of the allocated Rs 67.99 crore for proper Solid Waste Management from the government of India since 2014.
National Green Tribunal too has repeatedly rebuked the state authorities for failing to scientifically manage the huge quantity of waste Srinagar produces.