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Magazine
Changed lives
GAGANDEEP KAUR
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Once a breeding ground of the Chikunguniya vector, Latur today is a transformed city thanks to an innovative public-private sector partnership.
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Photo: Gagandeep Kaur
Ushering in cleanliness: A former rag picker doing the rounds.
The rag pickers of Latur are a transformed lot. Not only have they changed their own lives, but have also been instrumental in the city winning the prestigious Sant Gadge Baba Maharaj Award of $70,000 or approximately Rs. 30,00,000, which recognises good sanitation practices in cities of Maharashtra.
“Earlier, we used to earn around Rs. 1800 and our children also used to do this work. It is different now. We earn around Rs. 3000 per month; we have savings. Our children go to school; we can dream of a better life for them,” says Lata Bai, a rag picker who has been doing this work for the last 10 years.
Latur now is exceptionally clean. There is a total absence of litter on the roads or the market. This, however, was not achieved in a day. “Latur was one of the biggest breeding centres of the Chikunguniya vector. We had to do something. After a survey of Tirupati, which has around 7,00,000 visitors every day but no garbage, we decided to implement door-to-door collection of garbage in the entire city. We decided to privatise garbage collection in 2005. Unlike other municipalities, we planned for the entire city and that is one of the main reasons of success. The critical aspect of the project is that we did not spend any money on garbage collection. The municipality pays the NGO based on per ton of waste collection,” says Deepak Kasar, who was the Municipal Commissioner of Latur when the project was implemented.
Unique distinction
The project has also earned Latur the unique distinction of being a dustbin-free city. “Dustbins are actually a part of the problem. Even if dustbins are there, people throw garbage on roads and dustbins lead to stray cattle and dogs. So once door-to-door garbage collection was implemented, we decided to remove all the dustbins,” says Sanjay K. Gupta, Program Director, Urban Services, GMED-USAID.
The project offers a win-win solution to all the parties concerned and is a fine example of public-private partnership. The rag pickers are not given a monthly salary, but are paid according to per tonne of garbage. Around 180 urban poor, including 53 of the original rag pickers, are employed. An added incentive is that the recyclable material in the garbage belongs to them and they can sell it in the market. The project not only solved the garbage problem but also changed the life of the rag pickers.
This boon of effective waste management as well as secure income generation has been facilitated by ACDI/VOCA, a U.S.-based voluntary, non-profit organisation committed to enhancing the quality of the lives of the informal sector urban poor. Under the Growth-Oriented Micro-Enterprise Development Project (GMED) of US Agency for International Development (USAID), ACDI/VOCA has worked closely with progressive municipalities of Maharashtra to contract out daily door-step collection to micro enterprises.
The new efficient waste management programme was started by Vasundhara Prayavaran Bahundshayia Sanstha (VPBS), a local NGO that won the contract to provide daily garbage collection services to over 90 per cent of the city. The VPBS has to carry out door-to-door collection as well secondary collection from the road. The transport as well as the equipment, called ghantagaddi (a cart for door-to-door collection), is provided by VPBS. Janadhar Sewa Bhavi Sanstha, another NGO working with the rag pickers, did the difficult job of organising the rag pickers and training them in door-to-door collection, personal hygiene and motivating them to send their children to school.
“The main advantage of the scheme is to the children, who cannot do this job anymore. They learn vocational courses like carpentry in the morning and then go to school in the afternoon. Earlier, they would start smoking very early in life, which is not the case now,” says a smiling Padma Bai, a rag picker and a proud mother of four school-going children.
The NGO has the tender to carry out the project for five years and two years are already over. What next? “We are thinking of various projects which will help us continue after the project is over. We have decided that we will continue with door-to-door collection even after the time period comes to an end. The rag pickers collectively have about Rs. 2,00,000 in savings and we have decided to set up a biomass project. The deal has been signed with Appropriate Rural Technology Initiative (ARTI) of Pune and the project is likely to start soon,” says Swamprakash Wareghan, Secretary of Janadhar Sewa Bhavi Sanstha. ARTI, a Pune-based NGO founded by a group of scientists and social workers in 1996, seeks to serve as an instrument of sustainable rural development through the application of scientific and technological knowledge.
Commenting on the problems faced during the implementation of the project, Mutange, then Project Coordinator says, “The free service mentality is very deeply entrenched in our psyche. An interesting aspect of the project is that while slum dwellers were willing to part with Rs. 20 for garbage collection, this was not true of people belonging to the educated area of the city. Educated people feel that it is the responsibility of the local government to collect the garbage and would throw the garbage on the road, which is not true of slums.”
Quality of life
Another by-product, apart from an increase in income, is that the rag pickers’ quality of life has improved. “Most of the rag pickers are women and their husbands used to drink a lot and children also used to help in waste collection. Now the children go to school in the afternoon; many are learning some vocation. The men have also transformed. Almost 75 per cent have stopped drinking,” says Kaneria Tai Saikat, who collects money from rag pickers for saving in the bank. Though she is illiterate, she is trusted by everybody and does the calculation on her fingers. She is also responsible for collecting students and bringing them to the school after their work.
It is important that any solid waste management programme is based on a performance-based model while at the same time keeping the interests of rag pickers in mind. The success of the Latur model effectively exemplifies this.
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