Hyderabad: The Secunderabad Cantonment Board is all set to begin a new solid waste management system. During a board meeting on Monday, Sujatha Gupta, the SCB chief executive officer, said that residents would be given coloured recyclable bags for segregation of wastes at the household level.
“Bins will also placed in colonies for segregated dumping of wastes. Composters will be built in every colony for composting kitchen and organic wastes,” said Ms Gupta. She added, “We are planning on adopting the Panaji model of solid waste management, which was studied by the CEOs of the Southern Command during a recent visit.”
Meanwhile, the Secunderabad Cantonment Board, has already collected property tax of Rs 18 crore. However, the Begumpet Airport Authority owes the Board property tax dues of Rs 9 crore that have been accumulated over 12 years. Officials also said that from Tuesday, hearings of representations from property owners not satisfied with reassessments of properties will begin. Ms Gupta said waiver will be made in some cases. Meanwhile, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation is yet to take up garbage collection in a segregated manner from the households.
Though Ramky, the company that handles solid waste management of the city at the Jawaharnagar dump yard, has been asking the municipal body to collect the garbage in segregated manner for quick disposal of waste, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has not started any such initiative and has not proposed anything so far.
Ravi Kiran, additional commissioner (health and sanitation), GHMC, said “As of now, we are not collecting segregated waste from the households. The segregation is taken up at the dumpyard level.” When asked if there are any proposals to introduce such segregation system, the official said, “So far we have not proposed to introduce such system.”
On the other hand, the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority’s initiative to prevent dumping of pooja material in the Hussainsagar is proving to be helpful, but not completely successful. Though there are four ‘pooja collection’ centres one each at Necklace Road, Tank Bund, near Sanjeevaiah Park and near the Indira Gandhi statue at the IMAX circle, all through the day, people fling gunny bags or polythene covers, mostly containing pooja material, into the lake. “Such things will stop only when people realise how much harm they are causing to the lake,” said an HMDA official. Even signboards that clearly state the imposition of fines have failed to deter the wrongdoers.
