Punjab: Door-to-door waste collection kicks off in Ludhiana village

Under the project, all households in village Landha have been given two different coloured dustbins — green (for wet waste) and blue (for dry waste). A person has been hired for collecting garbage from all households on a daily basis and take it to a shed where four pits have been constructed to convert wet waste into manure to be used by farmers. Dry waste, including plastic and iron, among others will be sold by the village panchayat for generation of income. While the land for pits and shed construction has been given by the panchayat, the entire construction has been done using labor under National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGA). Dustbins and other logistics have been arranged using panchayat funds. Salary of the person hired to collect garbage from households will be paid after collecting Rs 50 from each household every month.

BDPO Navdeep Kaur said work on the construction of shed and pits was started in August and a total of Rs 6 lakh were spent on it. (Express photo)

The project was inaugurated by Ludhiana DC Pardeep Aggarwal. BDPO Navdeep Kaur said work on the construction of shed and pits was started in August and a total of Rs 6 lakh were spent on it.

“Labor hired under NREGA has been paid Rs 1.5 lakh for construction of pits and shed and rest of expenditure was on construction material also purchased under NREGA. Other expenses like buying 600 bins, a cart for door to door collection and others has been done from panchayat funds which has also spared land for pits. So, the project is an apt example of convergence of state and central schemes,” said Navdeep Kaur.

“We have counselled each household especially women on how to segregate waste in two bins. After collection, it will be taken to pit site. While wet waste will be converted into manure, dry waste will be sold off by panchayat for their income. We will be using microbial solution approved by agriculture department to convert wet waste into manure for farmers. The idea is to completely eliminate open dumping of garbage in village,” she added.

Gagandeep Singh, ex-sarpanch of the village, under who tenure work on project started, said, “Each household has agreed to pay Rs 50 per month for salary of the person who has been hired to do door to door collection. Ours is the first village where garbage will be collected door to door and later disposed off in proper way. We have counselled all village residents to not dump garbage anywhere in open now and use two dustbins. Wet waste will give manure to farmers and dry waste will give income to panchayat.”