EMPLOYMENT GENERATION THROUGH WASTE MANAGEMENT: AMBIKAPUR MODEL

With the vision to make Ambikapur (the land of Mahamaya Devi) a green and clean city of India, the District Administration and Municipal Corporation of Ambikapur started the project “Swachh Ambikapur ” in the Year 2015. The four pillars of the Swachh Ambikapur model are District Administration, Municipal Corporation, Local Level Legislatures and the women SHG groups. The USP of this project is, it depends upon community-based structures to collect, segregate and manage municipal solid waste.  17 Solid and Liquid Resource Management (SLRM) centres are set up in the Ambikapur district for municipal solid waste management. These SLRM centres are solely managed by SHGs (10 to 15 women in each group).

Started as an alternative method to discard municipal solid waste, it transpired as a socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable model to the entire nation. With 440 SHG women “Swachh Ambikapur Mission Sahakari Samiti Maryadit” society was federated in 2015. Now the name has been changed to “Swachh Ambikapur Mission City Level Federation”. Ambikapur municipal solid waste management model has generated green jobs for the urban poor, without putting monetary pressure on the state exchequer. The organizational structure of the Swachh Ambikapur federation can be understood by the following chart:

Swachh Ambikapur Mission Sahakari Samiti Maryadit

Organizational Chart

Ambikapur Municipal Corporation is the monitoring body of the federation.

The first SLRM centre was inaugurated on 14 April 2015, since then the District Administration and Municipal Corporation of Ambikapur have not looked back. Within a short period, 16 new SLRM centres were set up to cover all the 48 wards of the Ambikapur district. According to the model each SLRM centre has been allotted 2-3 wards for door-to-door waste collection. The SHG group of respective SLRM centres leave the centre around 8:00 am every day to collect waste from households and commercial areas. The collection of waste is done through uniformly designed tricycles. Every day these Swachhata didi’s visit 27,000 households and 3,000 commercial bodies including hotels, shops and stalls to collect waste.

After the door-to-door waste collection, they return to their respective centres and segregate the waste. Primary segregation is done at the household level by keeping 2 separate dustbins for dry and wet waste. A tertiary waste segregation Centre called “Sanitary Park” has been set up where dry waste is segregated into 156 categories. This model is economically sustainable in nature. A fixed monthly user fee of Rs. 50/- is being charged from each household and Rs. 100 – 5000/- (based on size) is being charged from commercial entities and is collected by the federation. Apart from user fees, the federation generates revenue by selling recyclable items and Vermicompost made from biodegradable waste or wet waste.