TC Web Desk
In a boost to build ‘Garbage Free Cities’ in Rajasthan, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) on Friday approved proposals worth ₹250 crore submitted by the state for remediation of more than 45.5 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of legacy waste present in dumpsites across its 24 cities.
More than 4,800 metric tonnes (MT) of municipal solid waste is generated per day by the 198 urban local bodies (ULBs) of Rajasthan. While 99 percent of its wards are covered by door-to-door collection of waste, only 28 percent of this waste is scientifically processed, as most of the unprocessed waste ends up in nearby dumpsites.
Despite exemplary work done by cities such as Dungarpur (declared Cleanest City in 25K-50K population category in Swachh Survekshan 2021), Rajasthan ranked 11th out of 14 states in the ‘more than 100 ULBs’ category in Swachh Survekshan 2021.
Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan and with the maximum amount of legacy waste in the state, is also preparing itself to remediate 11.9 lakh MT of legacy waste to transform its urban landscape, improve the quality of life for its residents, and reclaim about 147 acres of viable city land.
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Bikaner Municipal Corporation is set to remediate approximately 6.65 lakh MT of waste lying in the city’s dumpsite while Jodhpur plans to remediate approximately 4MT of legacy waste and reclaim 17 acres of prime land. It is expected that this effort to remediate will facilitate the recovery of over 473 acres of valuable land across the state that is currently buried under decades-old waste.
In a statement, MoHUA said, under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban 2.0, it is constantly engaging with Rajasthan’s Local Self Government Department (LSGD) through capacity building workshops, and handholding sessions on action plan preparation for solid waste management for every urban local body to build state’s capacity.
The budgetary allotment for SBM-U 2.0 for Rajasthan is ₹1,765.80 crore – 2.5 times more than the allocation of ₹705.46 crore in SBM-U from 2014-19 of which Rajasthan has been able to claim 87 percent of the available funds.
