MANY in Meghalaya might not be aware that Environment Ministry has revised the Solid Waste Management Rules after 16 years and the Ministry of Environment and Forests is the agency in charge of implementing the Act. An important aspect of the Act is that it is now applicable beyond Municipal areas and will extend to urban agglomerations, census towns, notified industrial townships, areas under the control of Indian Railways, airports, airbase, port and harbour, defence establishments, special economic zones, State and Central government organizations, places of pilgrims, religious & historical importance. In India roughly about 62 million tonnes of waste is generated annually at present, out of which 5.6 million tonnes is plastic waste, 0.17 million tonnes is biomedical waste, hazardous waste generation is 7.90 million tonnes per annum and 15 lakh tonne is e-waste. The per capita waste generation in Indian cities ranges from 200 grams to 600 grams per day of which 43 million tonnes per annum (TPA) is collected, 11.9 million is treated and 31 million is dumped in landfill sites, which means that only about 75-80% of the municipal waste gets collected and only 22-28 % of this waste is processed and treated. Waste generation in India will increase from 62 million tonnes to about165 million tonnes in 2030. Responsibility of waste generators has been introduced to segregate waste into three categories
– Wet, Dry and Hazardous Waste. The generator will have to pay ‘User Fee’ to the waste collector and a ‘Spot Fine’ for littering and non-segregation, the quantum of which will be decided by the local bodies. It is in this contect that the new Act becomes important to Meghalaya. Urban Local Bodies now have a responsibility to share not just on garbage collection and dumping but also on how it is managed until it reaches stage where waste is converted into a resource.Under the new act waste processing facilities will have to be set up by all local bodies having 1 million or more population within two years. In case of census towns below 1 million population, setting up common, or stand-alone sanitary landfills by, or for all local bodies having 0.5 million or more population and for setting up common, or regional sanitary landfills by all local bodies and census towns under 0.5 million population will have to be completed in three years. The Government has also constituted a Central Monitoring Committee under the chairmanship of Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change to monitor the overall implementation of the Rules. It will be interesting to watch how Meghalaya implements the new Act where the urban local bodies – in this case the Dorbar Shnong respond to the same. The Act further provides for a penalty clause in case it is violated.