States told to frame solid waste management rules

Chandigarh : States in northern India were told on Wednesday to frame solid waste management rules by next year, an official said.

The first meeting of the northern region monitoring committee was held here under the chairmanship of Rajwant Sandhu, a former Chief Secretary of Himachal Pradesh.

The National Green Tribunal has been monitoring the implementation of provisions of the Solid Waste Management Rules through five Regional Monitoring Committees across the country.

Principal Secretaries of the Urban Development Department and Member Secretaries of the Pollution Control Boards from Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh met here and discussed and fixed timeframe for implementing the rules.

Representatives of the Central Pollution Control Board also participated.

At the meeting, issues pertaining to formulation of policy in each state, strategy for implementation and framing of waste management bye-laws were discussed, a statement said.

The focus of the meeting was to prepare the policy for door-to-door collection, source segregation of waste and transportation of waste to the processing units.

Issues like decentralized composting, materials recovery closest to its generation and on-site management of garden waste were also discussed.

A decision was taken that all states will formulate their waste management action plans by October 31 and execute them by December 31 next year.