PIB sponsored Press Tour of Mumbai & Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Bodies
By Arun Pratap Singh
Mumbai/Dehradun, 2 Feb: Towns and cities contribute substantially to the economic development of the country. These urban centres also play an important support role in the development of the rural hinterland. To keep this economic transformation in line with needs and realities at the grassroots level, it is necessary to empower the municipal bodies of the country. When the need for this was strongly felt, it led to the 74th Amendment in our Constitution, which provides for greater autonomy to the urban local bodies. However, while some states like Maharashtra have implemented the provisions of the 74th Amendment with a positive and right spirit, states like Uttarakhand have considerably lagged behind. As a result, when compared to the ULBs like BMC (Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation) and Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporations (PCMC), Urban Local Bodies in Uttarakhand hardly look empowered and lack adequate autonomy.
This Correspondent was part of a Press Information Bureau (Government of India) sponsored press tour to Maharashtra, recently. As part of the tour, the team of journalists was also taken to the offices of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation in Mumbai and Pimpri-Chinchwad (twin city of Pune) Municipal Corporations for an interaction with top officials of both the corporations, including the Director, Disaster Management of BMC, Mahesh Narvekar, and with Manoj Lonkar, Deputy Municipal Commissioner of PCMC.
It was clearly noted that, as against the urban local bodies in Uttarakhand and in UP, far greater autonomy has been granted to the urban local bodies in Maharashtra. One major difference was that Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) as well as Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporations (PCMC) are being administrated by far more senior level officers as compared to, say, the Dehradun Nagar Nigam. BMC’s Municipal Commissioner is a top-level IAS officer, often of the level of Additional Chief Secretary. The current BMC Commissioner, for example, is Iqbal Singh Chahal, who is a 1989 batch officer, while in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Shekhar Singh, a 2012 batch IAS officer, is the Municipal Commissioner. On the other hand, the Dehradun Nagar Nigam is currently administrated by a PCS officer. Administration of urban local bodies by senior IAS officers makes a major difference in the functioning of the corporation. Also, in Maharashtra, it is the urban local bodies which have the responsibility of map approval and water supply, whereas, in the case of Dehradun, it is the Mussoorie Dehra Development Authority that has been given the task of map approval, while the Peyjal Nigam, a state government corporation, has been given the responsibility of water supply and sewerage. As a result, the Dehradun Nagar Nigam remains deprived of not only good sources of income through map approval and water supply, etc., but also of adequate empowerment.
Being administrated by senior level officers, both BMC and PCMC are not only self sufficient in more ways but are able to attract far greater central assistance for their innovative projects. For example, the press team sponsored by the PIB was taken to the Waste Management Plant under the administrative control of PCMC in Pune. This plant can be an ideal example to emulate for most states and cities across the country. In PCMC’s municipal area, there are around 6 lakh families (around 21 lakh population) living and they generate around 1200 MT of waste every single day. Of this, around 700 MT is solid dry waste and the remaining 500 MT is wet waste. PCMC, with the help of Government of India and a Japanese company, set up a Waste Management plant at a cost of Rs 300 crores, which not only turns biodegradable waste into compost but also generates 14 MW of power. This plant is operated under a PPP scheme. The solid waste management at this plant is an example that needs to be followed across the country by the urban local bodies. Efficiency level at this plant is such that less than 10 percent of solid waste is inert and has to be landfilled, which can be used in various construction activities such as road construction. It also incorporates a water treatment plant, which ensures treatment of sewage water. The segregation of waste into various categories is done as far as possible at the users’ end (into dry and wet waste) but also at the plant. Of the 14 MW generated at the plant, 2 MW is being used at the plant itself for its fully automated waste management process and for its sewage treatment plant, while the remaining 12 MW is being sold to the Grid. The power generation is being managed by a private company, Antony Lara Renewable Energy, which has been given the contract to generate power for the next 30 years.
In sharp contrast, the solid waste management in Uttarakhand is beset with huge problems and efficiency issues. Uttarakhand has 9 Municipal Corporations with none of them being comparable to MBC and PCMC and 93 other urban local bodies. Dehradun generates around 450 MT of waste every single day and is hardly segregated into solid and wet waste at users’ level. Not only this, not all the waste generated in the Doon is picked up according to various local NGOs. The waste management being undertaken by the state’s Urban Development Department headed by Urban Development Minister Prem Aggarwal is very basic and lacks efficiency. Most of the solid waste generated is hardly segregated into biodegradable and inert or plastic categories and is mostly landfilled. This results in stinking up the entire area surrounding the earmarked landfills and draws regular protests from the residents of nearby areas. Even the sewage management is very poor, even in cities like Dehradun. Much of the sewage flows into the rivers Bindal and Rispana and some of it goes to agriculture areas. In cities like Srinagar, Tehri, Narendra Nagar, Rishikesh and Haridwar, a significant amount of sewage ends up in River Ganga.
The media team touring Maharashtra also visited the Disaster Management Control Room at BMC. The Director of BMC’s Disaster Management Department, Mahesh Narvekar, interacted with the media, explaining in detail how Mumbai coped with the Covid pandemic and other disasters like fires, flooding and building collapses over the past few years. Narvekar shared that the disaster management department of BMC works in complete integration with the Police, the Traffic Police, Hospitals and Health Department, Fire Services, NDRF and SDRF teams. The level of preparedness of the BMC personnel and that of the departments related to disaster management appeared to be at optimal level. The BMC Disaster Management Department has a staff strength of over 1,500 officials. In Mumbai, with the height of the buildings increasing each year, new challenges are faced in disaster management including the challenges of rescue from high rise buildings in case of fire or earthquakes, or in the case of sudden collapse of old buildings. Some old videos recorded by the integrated CCTVs across the city also showed the resilience of the Mumbaikars. One old video showed a large tree suddenly falling on the road and trapping some people including women and children. Immediately as the tree fell, some people informed the Control Room while other residents without caring about risks to their own lives immediately joined in the rescue operation.
It is pertinent to remind here that the Annual Budget of the BMC is around Rs 60,000 crores, while the total annual budget of the entire state of Uttarakhand is around Rs 68,000 crores.
