Swachh Bharat Mission: Neither the mountains of garbage nor the place was cleaned; only minimal work was done in many states
Swachh Bharat Mission: A major goal of the Swachh Bharat Mission is to eliminate the years-old garbage heaps, most of which have become mountains. There are 2424 garbage dumps in the country where more than a thousand tons of solid waste is collected. Out of these, only 470 sites have been completely cleaned. 730 dump sites have not been touched yet.
To eradicate the mountains of garbage in the cities, the Center started a scheme of over three thousand crore rupees, hoping that if the states also cooperated equally, the mountains could be eliminated, but this too has become a victim of slackness on the part of the states and had a slow start.
One of the important goals in mind for the Swachh Bharat Mission is to rid the country of the heap of garbage that has been accumulating over these years, and most of them mounted. An important milestone in the ongoing Swachh Bharat Mission started on October 2, 2014, targeting the ending of such mounts of garbage with the launch of SBM-2.0 on October 1, 2021, and it was imagined that such a problem would never be allowed to arise in the future.
That is, for this, along with disposing of the existing garbage, such sites had to be developed as green zones. According to data provided by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, so far, only 15 percent of the area has been cleaned and the garbage disposed is around 35 percent.
In the country, there are 2424 garbage dumps where more than one thousand tons of solid waste is collected. Of these, 470 sites have been rehabilitated so far. As many as 730 dump sites remain untouched. Actually, the cities do not have any facility for the disposal of solid waste. For them, cleanliness means collecting garbage from homes and dumping it at a place outside the city. Many such sites have now come within the cities.
The ministry estimates that about 15 thousand acres of land is trapped in these mountains of garbage and a total of 16 crore tonnes of garbage is deposited in them, which needs to be disposed of. According to the report released in 2023 on the state of the environment, one and a half lakh tonnes of solid waste is generated in the country every day, but urban development experts talk of three times more than this, i.e. about five lakh tonnes of garbage is generated every day, out of which not even one-third is disposed of properly.
According to the ministry's dashboard, the plan to start garbage disposal facilities in 1250 dump sites has been approved and work has started in them.
Except Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, no other state has expressed its desire to work on this scheme on a war footing. These two states are on the way to achieving the target with three-fourths of success. Apart from this, the condition of almost all the states - Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Punjab - is the same.
In Bengal, 143 lakh tonnes of garbage is deposited and only nine lakh tonnes have been disposed of in three years. The same is the case with Karnataka, which has not even touched its garbage mountains. Delhi should look at Gujarat, which has eliminated almost the same amount of garbage in just three years.
