SWaCH & PMC clean up Sutardara

SWaCH & PMC clean up Sutardara

Pune: SWaCH and the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) have worked together to transform Sutardara - an area having 6,000 families from mostly lower income groups - by establishing a system of door to door garbage collection. Chronic spots in the area have been reduced and garbage dumping in open has almost stopped. In just two months, around 40 SWaCH waste-pickers have made this transition possible. The volunteers  from SWaCH said that initially the people were sceptical to pay a monthly user fee, however after conducting awareness rally to highlight the importance of sanitation, the change is seen. 

Santosh R Tatkar, Sanitary Inspector, Kothrud Ward office, said “This area had containers, but people hardly used them and instead dumped the garbage outside. They were also not ready to give garbage to waste pickers. To stop this, at first, we removed the containers from here and deployed our staff near each chronic spot from 6 am to 1 am to keep a tab on people. We slapped fine on those dumping garbage in open.”

“The strict actions helped in bringing deterrence. Now, all the chronic spots from this area have been removed,” he added.

Mangal Bamane, a local resident, said, “Initially, we use to dump garbage in the open plot where containers were kept. Due to open dumping, the entrance to our lane had become narrow and the area was covered with foul smell. When PMC and SWaCH workers informed us about the garbage collection and how it will make things better for us, we decided to change the practice.” Bamane added that since las two months they are giving garbage only to these wastepickers and not dumping in the open plot.

Another local resident Dikshita Barad, said, “The situation here  was really worse, especially in rainy season, as the entire garbage use to come on road. We are really happy with this new change and we make sure that we give our garbage to wastepickers. If we like to clean our houses, then why not our surroundings?”

SWaCH wastepicker Manda Mohan Kadam said, “Earlier, the residents of this area were not ready to give garbage but after the awareness drive was conducted, its been two months they have started giving garbage and segregation at source is also happening.”

“This area is very uneven and hilly. It is really tiring for us to move our vehicle, but when you see positive response, it really doesn’t matter,” she added

Nitin Madne, ward coordinator of SwaCH, said “Initially, these people were not ready to pay monthly user fee of Rs 60 and ask if there is a container near the roadside, why to pay for garbage, But that container become a chronic spot and a lot of garbage was lying in the open.”

Sandhya Dhamle, SwaCH Zone Coordinator, said, “A lot of people in this area are labourers and use to leave early morning for work. Thus, it was really difficult to collect garbage in the morning, so we deployed wastepickers for this area from 4 pm to 6 pm.”

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