MCD's scheme doesnt see the dawwn of success

NEW DELHI: After much fanfare and consultation with pundits, the auspicious time of 1pm was chosen to start the mammoth task of door-to-door segregation of garbage in the city. But despite seeking divine intervention, the scheme which kicked off from Shalimar Bagh and Model Town on Monday ended without any segregation taking place.
The civic agency, which has been planning this scheme for over a year now has not even started a public awareness campaign in this regard.Said an MCD official: "On Monday, only a trial run of the door-to-door segregation took place. We will begin the process in a proper manner from Tuesday. We will carry out public awareness campaigns to tell people how to separate bio-degradable waste from recyclable waste.'' The idea of providing white and green dustbins to each household to facilitate segregation has been dropped. MCD was to provide the dustbins at a cost of Rs 50 crore.
A number of residents of Shalimar Bagh were not even aware that such a scheme had started on Monday. "No one from the MCD came to pick up garbage on Monday. We have not even been told about the scheme,'' said Ramesh Rana (name changed), a resident of BC block.
The contractor carrying out door-to-door segregation has to process 75% of the waste by composting it and by using other technologies. Only 25% of the waste can be dumped at the landfill sites, otherwise the contractor stands to be penalised. Since the entire segregation process is yet to streamlined, the civic agency, which will pay Rs 1,493 per tonne of waste to the contractor, will pay 50% of this amount till integrated garbage management system is put in place.