8.1 Situation Analysis
Solid Waste Management Practice
The Municipal Solid Waste Management MSWM system of the city was primitive, with no scientific collection, transportation and disposal system. Waste disposal Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) was a concept adopted widely, and eventually huge piles of waste was found indiscriminately around the city.
With financial assistance provided by Asian Development Bank (ADB), state government of Rajasthan implemented Rajasthan Urban Infrastructure Development Project (RUIDP), under which MWSM Ajmer has undergone some transformation along with other developmental activities in different places. The present MSWM system was developed under RUIDP.
Quantity and Quality of Municipal Solid Waste
The study conducted under RUIDP estimated that at present Ajmer produces approximately 150 TPD. A study conducted by NEERI states that the estimated quantity of MWS generation in the city in 2014 and 2021 is expected to be 204 and 252 TPD respectively at a rate of 360 gm/capita/day considering an annual increase in MSW generation by 1.5 times.
The MSW generated in the city mainly consists of domestic refuses (including slum area), wastes from commercial areas, vegetable fruit market, slaughter houses, bio-medical waste, wastes from hotels and restaurants and industrial solid wastes. Apart from wastes generated from these areas, wastes are also collected from drains in the form of wet silts, which are dried along the side of the road itself.
Residential and commercial area:
The residential area of the city has been divided into three groups viz. High Income group (HIG), Medium Income Group (MIG) and Low Income Group (LIG). There are approximately 75,000 house holds where MSW
generation is estimated to be 300gr/capita/day in HIG, 260 gm/capita/day in MIG and 130 gm/capita/day in LIG. The collection of MSW in Ajmer has been divided into different zones for better performance in SWM.
Slum Area: There are 69 slum areas identified within Ajmer city. In these areas, waste collection, transportation and disposal are not taken care properly and regularly.
Vegetable and fruit market: There are six vegetable and fruit markets and various wholesale and trade centers in the city. Though the wholesale markets have been shifted to outskirts of the city and Krishi Upaj Mandi Samity, whole sale vegetable market, Meat Market and FCI godowns have been shifted to Beawar road. Approximately 12 TPD of wastes are generated from these areas. Past reports clearly state that the solid waste management in the market area is not satisfactory.
Photoplate 8.1. Heaps of MSW along the road side
Slaughter houses: There are six meat and fish markets with an expected waste generation of 2 TPD. Total number of butchered animals in the city can not be calculated as there are only two authorised slaughter houses in the city which butchers about 20%-30% of the total animal butchered. Rest of the butchering is done by unauthorized slaughtering houses. Wastes are collected outside slaughter houses unattended and disposed into the drains along with municipal wastes.
Bio-medical Waste generation and management:
Prior to 1998, bio-medical wastes generated from medical establishments were considered as municipal wastes and was disposed in dumping ground along with other municipal wastes.
Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rule 1998, stipulates special consideration for disposal of bio-medical wastes under which wastes are categorized under 10 categories with different treatment and disposal options. Health care establishment is supposed to have a full fledged bio-medical waste disposal system individually or a common bio-medical waste disposal system in the city.
The present scenario of bio-medical waste management and disposal system existing in Ajmer is disposal at municipal waste dumping ground even if it is not recommended under Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rule 1998, CPCB.
There are 130 medical establishments in Ajmer with total bed capacity of 1500 beds. It is reported that the total quantity of bio-medical waste generated in Ajmer is approximately 5 TPD. Some hospitals eg. Jawaharlal Nehru hospital and railway hospital (both being government establishment) have their own incinerators, while other establishments which do not have this indoor facility, divert the wastes to municipal waste dumping ground. According to All India Institute of Health and Personal Health Hygiene (AIIHPH) 47.2 percent of the total bio-medical wastes are infectious in nature. Bio-medical wastes consist of waste sharps, discarded glass wares and disposables, human infected and discarded parts.
Hotels and restaurants: There are approximately 230 hotels and restaurants in the city with total waste generation of approximately 10 TPD.
Industrial solid waste: There are approximately 165 industries at two industrial areas namely Prabhatpura and Makhpura on Nasirabad road. Apart from these, there are two railway workshops, HMT, dairy plant etc. around the city.
Collection and disposal system:
The city of Ajmer has been divided into three zones for managing municipal solid waste.
Each of the three zones are further divided into three circles that are further divided into four to nine wards depending upon population size and area in each zones.
The primary collection system of MSW in the city still remains primitive. The wastes from houses, shop and establishments are thrown on the road side (or sometimes on roads) and open drains as there is no door to door waste collection practiced in the city. Sweepers (cleaners) sweep the wastes to a certain point making heaps of wastes along the road side.
These wastes then pile up to form huge heaps of solid wastes along the road side (Photoplate 8.1). These heaps of MSW is then collected and transported by open hand carts to 365 designated primary collection points/ depots.
These wastes from depots are collected and transported to the waste dumping site.
Transportation of the waste from 70 percent of the depots has been outsourced to private parties and remaining 30 percent is catered by municipality. This system was accepted not as an encouragement of private participation in the waste management in the city, but due to lack
of transportation systems available to municipality. The location of the waste dumping site is at Makhupura, which is located on the western side of Ajmer-Naseerabad highway, at a distance of 10 km from centre of the city.
Assessment of collection facility:
• The collection system in the city is found primitive, unsatisfactory and inefficient.
• MSW are neither stored nor segregated at source. They are littered on the streets, footpaths, open spaces drains or water bodies indiscriminately.
• Collection and storage points are open lands or broken bins, mostly unattended, developing unhygienic condition in the surrounding. (Photoplate 8.2.).
• Street sweeping is done only for 50 percent of the area.
• Apart from the MSW, other wastes that find its way to the MSW dumping ground are the bio-medical infectious wastes, hazardous industrial wastes.
• In slum areas and low income group residential areas, MSW collection and transportation system is totally neglected.
• There is a lack of civic awareness, hygiene, necessity of segregation and proper storage of wastes among the citizens
• Strength and distribution of sweepers in not adequate.
• There is a lack of institutional accountability, responsibility and performance monitoring for MSW management.
• Double handling practice of wastes by the sweepers and collectors reduces the productive output to a significant level.
• There are inadequate numbers of wheel barrows, tractor trolley, community bins and their conditions are poor.
• There is no control over activities by private contractors which accounts for over 70 percent of the city cleanup activity.
• No complaints can be lodged against the working of the staffs for not cleaning regularly and not attending the wastes.
Assessment of transportation facility:
• Transportation of MSW to the dump site in the city is not done on regular basis
• Due to lack of vigilance, most of the time, wastes are not at all carried to the dumping yard, rather thrown at some low lying areas.
Photoplate 8.2.Unattended and broken bins
• Waste transportation system in not synchronized with primary collection and storage timings, leading to the storage of huge piles of MSW around the city and especially at the storage areas.
• Citing of the depots in the city is also not systematically carried out. At some places, distance between two depots is more than a kilometer while at some place the distance is found to be less than 15 m.
• About 70 percent of the vehicles are old and inefficient. Frequent breakdowns, heavy operational and maintenance costs are burden under financial considerations. It is also found that the position of technical staff in workshop has been vacant for quite a long time.
• Capacity of tractor trolleys is not sufficient to carry the desired quantity of waste generated. Also their operational efficiency and operational cost is far more in comparison to the dumper placers in similar situation.
• The garage also lacks fuel storage facility, adequate technical work force and machines.
• Even though a legal provision of removal of construction wastes exists in the city, the same is not being implemented.
• Dumped solid wastes at various parts of the city (prior to the construction of dumping site) have still not been cleared and the huge compacted MSW still lies at the very location. A bright example is sited around the existing Vishramsthali.
Assessment of MSW disposal facility:
• There is only one site in the city (Makhupura) where disposal of MSW is carried out.
But interestingly this site is not approved by pollution control board and hence illegal.
Though there are two more disposal sites viz. Vishramsthali and Lohagal, these sites are kept abandoned due to no reason.
• The dumping site at Makhupura is unscientifically developed leading to possibility of occurring various environmental hazards including ground water contamination and contamination of nearby Khanpura talab.
• There is no liner system at the base of the dumping ground and the improper topographic condition of the site restricts uniform disposal of the MSW.
• The dumping site is not fenced and hence there is continuous encroachment of slums and rag pickers around the site.
• No environmental impact assessment studies have been carried out so far for the existing landfill.
• Many times it is observed that the private contractors do not at all dump wastes at specified location, rather prefer to dump the wastes at available low lying areas near the entrance of the dumping ground, leading the obstruction of other vehicles to utilize the unused spaces at the interior of the dumping ground.
• No compaction is done on the dumped wastes which are recommended in Municipal Solid Waste (M&H) Rule 2000.
• Apart from MSW, this dumping ground facilitates dumping of bio-medical wastes and industrial hazardous wastes, which are not legally recommended.
• Leachate management is no where in purview of the MSW management of the dumping ground.
Health hazards
• Indiscriminate littering of waste everywhere in the city leads to growth of unhygienic condition in the city.
• The degrading wastes may lead to growth of various diseases and insects like flies and mosquitoes.
• The rotten vegetable wastes will lead to bad odour in the locality.
• Unattended wastes encourage the rag pickers to collect the discarded plastic bottles and other recyclable wastes which are brought to the market again.
These are dangerous for further utilization in health perspective.
• The needles, syringes and other usable wastes in the form of bio-medical wastes are again brought back in the market by the rag pickers and local agencies which are again illegal as well as dangerous.
• Water contamination due to MSW leads to various water borne diseases to the consumers.
• Solid wastes in the drains chock the flow of water Photoplate 8.3. and lead to flooding of drains in the locality, causing unhygienic condition and growth of various diseases.
8.2 Development objectives
• Cleaning of all the city area on regular basis
• Coverage of managing MSW in 100 percent area to cater 100 percent population.
• Institutional and scientific management, planning and application of schemes to not only augmentation of the present existing system but to meet the necessary demand for future growth of the city area and population.
• Encourage awareness of health, hygiene and municipal waste management at source among the citizens of the city including residential and commercial areas.
• Restricting entry of bio-medical and industrial hazardous wastes into the municipal waste disposal facility and developing separate bio-medical and hazardous waste disposal facilities in the city.
• Entrusting responsibilities to the authorities to hold them accountable for any non conformation.
• Encourage performance based incentives to enhance efficiency and output.
8.3 Major strategies for addressing above problem
Improvement in collection, transportation, treatment and disposal of MSW system by involving private sector participation.
8.4 Major initiatives/ projects
a.) To develop infrastructure i.e. adequate equipment like wheel barrow, dumper placer container, dumper placer machine and volume of storage device for collection, transportation and disposal.
b.) Decentralized composting plants for treatment of MSW
c.) A incineration plant is proposed for incineration of bio-medical waste
d.) A good quality laboratory is also proposed to monitor all chemical and biological activity.
8.5 Basis of prioritization for implementation of MSW in the city
Photoplate 8.3. Choked drains by MSW
The projects are prioritized based on their low capital cost, feasibility of project implementation and ability to show desired results in short time. The prioritized projects are as follows:
• First priority shall be given to the implementation of those programmes for which master plans has already been prepared. This will reduce the time consumption for making another study.
• Shifting of the present dumping ground to a legal and scientific MSW disposal landfill to restrict any further damage to the ground and surface water.
• Procurement of mechanical equipments for cleaning, collection and transportation of wastes.
• Encourage various drives for keeping the city clean and encouraging segregation of wastes at source to the common mass.
• Involving private sector participation in collection, transportation and treatment of MSW facilities
8.6 Project Summary
The various projects for solid waste management include best collection, transportation, disposal and monitoring facility. The total capital cost of the project is 7.87 crore.
Project Name Estimated
Cost (Rs) Cr
Equipment for solid waste management 2.27
Solid waste composting plant 5.30
Laboratory for solid waste treatment plant 0.30
Total 7.87
Phasing & Implementation
Name of the Project 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Equipment for SWM
Composting plant
Laboratory
Awareness
Institutional mechanism for Implementation
A single institution shall be made responsible for taking up the management of solid waste in the city. At Ajmer, the initiative was taken up by RUIDP for construction of physical assets for the system while Municipal Council manages the operation and maintenance part of it.
There is a need to have continuous serious interaction between the two authorities for the need of augmentation of the existing system. Further, the municipal council shall need to strengthen itself for managing operation and maintenance activities. This can be achieved by contracting MSW management operation and maintenance to private sector and municipality to work as regulating and monitoring authority.