The NDA government’s flagship programme of Swachh Bharat Mission will go beyond mere maintenance of cleanliness as it is set to look at the issue from a holistic perspective by improvising the waste management process and promoting waste-to-energy units with a total capacity of about 1,033 MW, to begin with, through various incentives.
The nature of the Mission is set to become clear by August 15 when the NITI Aayog’s sub-committee of chief ministers that looks into Swachh Bharat Mission will submit its report to the Centre.
A decision on the deadline for report was taken at a meeting of the sub-committee led by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu held in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, Mr. Naidu said the sub-committee had decided to focus on efficient as well as cost-effective solid/liquid waste management technologies and vermicomposting besides setting up toilets.
Pointing out that the country generated 1,33,760 metric tonnes of waste a day, he said it was possible to set up waste-to-energy plants with a total capacity of 1,033 MW with these resources. The sub-committee would take up the issue with various authorities to offer incentives such as rebates in VAT and central taxes to these units so that energy cost could be reduced to Rs. 6 a unit – which is on a par with the solar energy, he noted. The sub-committee would come out with appropriate recommendations to bring about uniformity in the quantum of incentives to be provided by various agencies towards waste-to-energy plants, he said.
Bengaluru and Karnataka had the potential to set up waste-to-energy plants with a capacity of 30 and 100 MW respectively, he said.
Similarly, the sub-committee was studying various models of toilets including the e-toilets that can save water, he said. The sub-committee wanted to involve everybody including the non-governmental organisations and corporates in the process of building toilets by laying emphasis on public private partnerships, he said.
According to him, the Swachh Bharat mission needed a total outlay of Rs. 2.24 lakh crore which included an expenditure of Rs. 1.34 lakh crore for villages and Rs. 62,000 crore for urban areas.
Meanwhile, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah demanded that Centre should fund the states at a rate of 90:10 for implementing Swachh Bharat Mission. He did not agree with the Centre’s suggestion that the Mission’s requirement should be met from the allocations under the 14th finance commission while arguing that the increase in allocation under the finance commission had been negated by decrease in Central share of funds to various projects.
Stating that Karnataka was set to become open-defecation-free state by October 2, 2018 a year ahead of the Centre’s deadline of October 2, 2019, he said the State government was planning to introduce Karnataka Rural Sanitation Facility Guarantee Bill in the present financial year to support such plans.\
Of the nine chief ministers who were scheduled to participate in the event, only four – Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Uttarakhand – turned up while others had deputed their representatives citing pre-occupations.
