INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, October 22
Kathmandu Metropolitan City had introduced a new rule to make it mandatory for each household to segregate
biodegradable and non-degradable waste at the source itself, in the last week of August, but the rule has not been implemented even after
months.
KMC had claimed that it had started collecting segregated waste in Wards 12, 18 and 21 as a pilot project
It had also said it would collect biodegradable waste for fours days (Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) and non-biodegradable waste on
remaining two days of the week.
But, people residing in the area around Nardevi and Basantapur said the waste collecting vehicle hardly came
to their locality, once in a week
Officials of KMC have admitted that they had not been able to send waste collecting vehicles to the core areas of the city six days in a
week due to some technical issues.
Bisesh Ranjit, a local of Makkhan in Basantapur, told THT that although he had heard about KMC new rule
of collecting household waste, he had not seen any vehicles in his locality that were meant for collecting biodegradable or non-degradable
Ranjit added that it was a good initiative to segregate the waste at the source itself, but the government should be serious about
implementing rules and plans.
While announcing the pilot project, KMC had said that vehicles with two different colours would be used
tocollect biodegradable and non-degradable waste, green vehicle for bio-degradable waste and red for non-degradable waste
However, KMC has done nothing in this regardso far.
A high-level source at KMC said that normally it would require a special vehicle to
collect and transport bio-degradable waste, but KMC had proposed to collect the waste in old trucks and tractors by painting them
green.
Chief of Environment Management Department at KMC Hari Kumar Shrestha said they were not able to implement the new rule due to the
festive season.
&Lots of people, including KMC staffers left Kathmandu during Dashain which affected our plans
We will implement the new rule after Tihar,& he said.
KMC officials may have thousands of excuses for not implementing the rule, but it is
very much clear that KMC has not made any preparations to implement the rule
KMC was supposed to build a new infrastructure at Teku for composting bio-degradable waste
But, no such infrastructure is in sight till date
This clearlyshows how serious KMC is in implementing its new rule and gives enough room to doubt Shrestha promise.
Solid Waste Management
Rules-2013 have made it mandatory for thewaste producers to manage bio-degradable and non-degradable waste on their own
But, due to lack of systematic collection of such waste from the government side, people are reluctant to segregate the waste at the
source.
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