Sustainable Municipal Solid Waste Management in India: A Policy Agenda

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) has emerged as a big challenge not only because of the health and environmental concerns but also due to huge quantities of waste generated. It is observed from many research documents that most urban local bodies (ULBs) in India are unable to handle such huge quantities of solid waste due to financial and institutional debilities. Furthermore, ULBs rarely have sufficient funds, resources, infrastructure and appropriate strategies for improved solid waste management. Segregation of waste, door to door waste collection, technologies for the treatment of waste, land resources and scientific disposal methods are some of the major challenges. Recognizing these challenges, the two ministries of Government of India namely Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) have initiated several policies and programmes to improve the current scenario of MSWM in India. Environment Ministry had promulgated the Municipal Solid Waste Management Rules in2000 which is now being revamped as Solid Waste Management Rules 2015 while the MoUD has prepared a draft manual on MSWM to support cities and towns on planning and implementing a proper MSWM system in line with the SWM Rules being promulgated in 2015. It is observed that many policies and programmes fail to achieve their objectives due to lack of clarity and awareness among the stakeholders and poor enforcement by the regulators. The present paper provides a comprehensive view of SWM and most importantly highlights some major points of the policies/programmes initiated by the Government of India to overcome the challenges of solid waste management in our country.