Visakhapatnam: The role of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) in colonies and apartments have assumed greater significance, of late, with them getting a large share of credit, for the collection of waste and its segregation at source in the cleanliness rankings.
It is said they are doing a good job to sensitise the public on waste segregation and involve them in other civic activities.
Public feedback is also a decisive factor for a good rank, which is why the municipal corporation is asking colonies and apartments to form RWAs and get them registered.
The active participation of RWAs would help the GVMC in maintaining its ‘third cleanest’ tag or improve it further.
Andhra Pradesh Federation of Resident Welfare Associations (APFRWAS) president, Uday Shirname, said, “RWA has a lot to contribute towards development of the city and improvement of its civic amenities. We are reaching out to various colonies and apartments, urging them to form RWAs and also activate the existing RWAs. So far, we have 123 RWAs in our fold.
“Improving civic amenities and cleanliness is easier when the citizens work in a group, rather than individually. The GVMC has also started interacting with the RWAs zone wise. Our association is working as a catalyst be-tween the RWAs and the civic body to spread various awareness programm-es including waste segregation at homes. The door-to-door garbage collection initiative of the corporati-on could be effective, only when people keep different dustbins for wet and dry waste at their homes and go for composting of organic waste in simple methods,” he added.
Though the GVMC has taken up the RWA registration drive, but ambiguity in the registration instructions such as registration fees has prevented many from going for it.
