Enhancing Urban Governance : Solid Waste Management

Paridhi Khandelwal

UM4000-1

Himatnagar is a class II town in Sabarkantha district in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the district. The city is developed on the bank of the river Hathmati. As a part of this studio project, the goal is to enhance the service delivery from municipality to citizens. After analyzing the existing service delivery methods, complaint redressal process and citizen survey results; proposals are made for improved framework of Solid Waste Management system to make it more efficient.

Report Content

Himatnagar city has 9 wards, with a total area of 9.56 square kilometers. There is almost an equal number of male and female population in the city, which is consistently growing with every passing decade. The increase in population further concludes for the increase in waste generation from what the city currently produces. This creates opportunity for better service delivery in the existing as well as the future situations in the field of Solid Waste Management.

The methodology of coming up with the proposal was a step by step process, starting from on-site observations of the current waste management process, collection of data like waste quantum ratios, existing feeder system, organogram and manpower, including both office staff and on-field workers. After this, case studies of successful models of waste management like Indore city and various other optimum route planning models were studied, to identify solutions to the issues found. 50 citizen surveys, including residences, commercial establishments and institutions and interviews of various authorities were held. Workers including sweepers, waste collectors and supervisors were also surveyed.

Understanding the existing situation of service delivery in the city was an essential part to further analyse issues and suggest solutions. Solid Waste Management comes under the purview of Sanitation Department and is headed by the Sanitation Inspector. It has also bagged the cleanest city award, in the state of Gujarat under 1 lac population, in the year 2021. Per household waste generation in the city is averaged to 350 grams according to the Swachh Survekshan Document 2021. There is a scientific landfill, construction and demolition waste site in the city for disposing off waste.

Various tactical and strategic interventions to tackle with the current waste collection system like preparation of fixed routes, re-scheduling worker timings from what the existing ones are, regular door to door collection and inspection and ultimately proposing an optimum route planning model for efficient collection of waste.

The slide highlights the Aim, Benefits and Methodology of the final proposal which states Route Optimisation for Waste Collection in Himatnagar City.

There were various case studies studied for successful models of waste collection to come up with one such proposed solution.

The implementation plan would be in three phases. While we currently focus on the first phase, which is the routing and scheduling of workers, along with focusing on daily collection of door to door waste, there are phase 2 and 3, which are the infrastructure and the IEC phases, and will be dealt with after execution of the first phase.

The image highlights the existing and the proposed situation of waste collection, wherein the tractor currently moves throughout the roads, there should be hand carts moving in the inner lanes, to ensure cent percent waste collection.

The image shows the plan of ward no 2, which the focus of study. It also highlights various stop points for the tractor and area wise division of waste collectors and sweepers.

The proposed routing and scheduling of waste collection should happen in such a manner that there is lack of wastage of time and fuel, and it still achieves efficiency.