MSW in Indian Cities is still crawling in its infancy. In Spite every day it is going from Bad to worst we are yet to set a priority in this part od Urban management.

1. Municipal Solid Waste Management :
still awaits few unaddressed issues
to be resolved
By : Tapas Kumar Ghatak, Geophysicist,
Former Director, Env. Cell KMDA, Dept of UD , GOWB,
Advisor to GOI and Consultant to World Bank, ADB, DFID sponsored
programme for various ULBs in India

2. Things that we all know
• India’s current population of 1,200 million will
continue to grow at the rate of 3-3.5% per
annum.
• With the per capita waste generation increasing
by 1.3% per annum, the yearly increase in waste
generation is around 5 % annually.
• Added to constrained budget allotments in the
solid waste sector, poor administrative
management practices have been a focus of
increasing concern.

3. A benchmark for comparing average costs
internally between different population ranges
within India
City with
Population
Cost Rs Per
capita/Year
Cost Rs Per
Tonnage/Year
Metro City 150/- 1100-1200/-
Class I city 110/- 450-500/-
Class II city 70-80/- 700-800/-
Source: NUIA 2005

4. The naked Truth of MSW Management
• Funds for SWM in India are typically assigned as part of the annual
municipal general budget
• Generally the sources, are central government, various NGOs, local taxes,
with little income directly tied to SWM.
• ULBs have to manage a number of civic services apart from SWM, the
number of services increasing with the size of city.
• The smaller towns, where SWM is the main municipal service, will spend
up to 70% of their total budget on SWM
• Metropolitan cities on the other hand, due to wider resources base and
responsibility to provide larger number of services, spend only around 10%
of their total budget on SWM.
• The provision of funds for solid waste management in India is
commonly observed to be made on an adhoc basis, and not
allotted on the basis of any cost estimate which is one of the
biggest reasons for mismanagement of resources

5. Few unaddressed issues
needs to be resolved.. But how??
1. General Issues :-
•a) Non Revenue Expenditure
•b) Collection procedures
•c) Transfer of Waste.
•d) Management
2. Particular Issues( Metro cities) :-
•a) Location of L.F.S.
•b.) Travel Time to L.F.S.
•c.) Road Width.

6. SWM is a Non Revenue Expenditure:-
• The fundamentals of the responsibilities have been quite
clearly mentioned in the Waste Management Handling Rule
2000 and accordingly an assessment was done which
mentions the proposed expenditure share of two agencies,
ULBs and State Government for a particular State.
• However neither this break up nor the WH rules remain
silent and do not mentions about the revenue to be
generated for its sustenance.
• In most of the ULBs in India mainly the Metro cities are under
the privilege of various fund allocations from State, National
and International agencies which are mainly for initial capital
expenditure.
• Issue of recovery of maintenance cost is one of the major
hurdles in the entire process of management. ULBs are
recovering about 15% of the cost from their properly tax but
the flow of fund for the balance amount is depended of flow
of fund from State in general.
• However Non revenue expenditure keeps on increasing for
the ULBs

7. Collection procedures
A. Sources of waste : In any of the Indian cities the normally adopted procedure which
are partially being followed are :-
•Residential – Slum and non-slum ( individual Houses or Housing Complexes)
•Commercial – Markets, Restaurants, Hotels
•Institutional – Offices, Hospitals, schools, Colleges, Temples
B. Categories of Waste to be collected : dry (recyclable and inert) and wet
(biodegradables)
C. Collection of waste : The General practices are
• For non-slum residential – daily collection ( with or without User fees)
•No separate bins are generally used at home. For slums, to be disposed in vat, no
user fee to be collected
•For malls and markets Generally a semi organised process are being followed
•For restaurant and Hotels : waste food generated is much more { A totally unknown
system is followed at present
•Institutional : the type of waste generated are : e-waste, paper , plastic and as such
no formal collection system exists.
D. No Formal collection procedure for Floating Population.

8. Transportation of waste :
Present Scenario
A dual functional of total collected waste are being followed for
transportation of Waste by private agency vehicles and by ULB’s owned
vehicles. In General The Following types of Vehicles are used for
transportation of waste :
•Tipper truck
•Compactors
•Dumper placer
•Prime mover
•Mechanical sweeper
•Pay loader
•Bulldozer
•Breakdown van
•Wrecker van
•Street washing vehicle
•Others

9. Management
The Flow Chart describes the hierarchy of
the management. To a great extend this
results a non sharing of responsibility and
the ultimate effect is reflected in the
Waste Management as a whole.

11. Particular Issues( Metro cities)
• Particular Issues( Metro cities) :-
a) Location of L.F.S.
b.) Travel Time to L.F.S.
c.) Road Width.
Few facts and Figure from KMC (Examples) on a GIS Platform

12. WARD WISE WASTE DISPOSAL PER DAY
WARD WISE POPULATION MAP

13. WARD AREA WISE WASTE VOLUME WARD WISE WASTE_POPULATION
PERCENTAGE

17. Hitting points of Transportation Route
• The total major utilised road length in KMC is about 4416 km and the
waste transportation for all the 141 wards use about 1736 km which is
39% of it.
• A total number of 270 roads either in full or in part segments are being
utilised for such transportation time only in day time adding a very high
load in the pick hours of the city traffic.
• Trip counts of the total wards in these roads are around 60000 per year
or about 170 trips per day.
• The Running time varies from 25 – 60 minutes one way with an average
speed of 20km/hr and travels about 9-20 km one way distances from a
centralised point of each ward of KMC.
• This requires minimum one trip in some wards to 4 trips in some wards
for removing all the waste generated in the ward.

18. Wrap Up
• The present system does not have any Community
Participation nor involvement any where in the entire flow
chart.
• Non sustainable as no one pays directly , so no stake holder.
• Decentralised model ( Housing Societies) of management for
composting is yet to make a break through.
• Cost analysis on ULB Level for the entire system is not made
to public.
• Rag Pickers are not counted as a formal force in the system.
• Rules and Laws are not known to the people .( neither in 2000
nor why it is required to be modified now)

19. CONCLUSION?????
Frankly I do not
know…
If you have, let us
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