Virat Nagar garbage disposal: A notable model in Hyderabad slum

Virat Nagar is a basthi located in Kapra cluster under Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) administration, Hyderabad city, Telangana. Most of this slum dwellers are mainly daily wage labourers and private employees. The houses are mostly pucca and semi-pucca.

Earlier the garbage collection system in Virat nagar is very poor and households are habituated to throw the garbage in nearby Nala, streets and open spaces. After a recent effort by the SaciWATERs with assistance from WaterAid has given a series of awareness on solid waste management to bring the behavioural change in segregation and disposal of waste.

This case study tries to capture the status of solid waste management and behavioural change in the community before and after the intervention of SaciWATERs/WaterAid.

When the project team intervened in the community it is observed that garbage collection system in the community is very poor and throwing garbage on streets and nala was the common practice of the residents in the community. Meeting in the slum on weekly basis is practiced to orient and habituate the BVM’s at slum level to discuss their issues in detail and it is said that “initially there was only one tricycle for garbage collection which is insufficient to cover the whole community and they use to collect the garbage for every 3 or 4 days and sometimes once in a week and we started throwing the garbage in nearby Nala or open spaces to keep our homes clean and tidy” says BVM members.

After seeing the situation in the community SaciWATERs has arranged a visit of GHMC officials and SWM experts to the community to solve the situation. After their visit they have appointed a garbage collectors to the community who is provided with tricycles/ tipper to collect the waste and this have built the confidence in the community. This went in operational for few days but later it again started with clashes among the residents and the garbage collectors that “segregation of waste is not being done at household level, this has become a major issue for the garbage collectors to collect and separate the dry and wet waste, irresponsible behaviour of the residents in disposing the garbage and they started hesitating to pay the amount for the collection of garbage” etc, was told by the garbage collectors when the project team had a meeting with them and the community. In order to bring the change in community and their behaviour towards the disposal of solid waste, the project team has conducted a door to door campaign on solid waste management to make them aware on segregation of dry and wet waste, their uses, and defects etc. which help in maintaining the cities and communities clean and healthy.

“After the door to door campaign on solid waste management the disposal of waste in to Nalas and in open spaces have been reduced to 70% and we are giving waste to garbage collectors only “says Ramesh and “after knowing the importance of it we started segregating of household waste by separating wet and dry waste even though few of us didn’t receive the twin bins from GHMC, are disposing the waste separately to the garbage collector” says BVM and community members.

As a part of the Solid waste management promotion SaciWATERs with an assistance from WaterAid have organised a street play, basically it is a cultural programme called  Kala Jatha  was organised in the community highlighting the solid waste management, segregation of household waste and government schemes etc to reach out  far and wide with directness of appeal. Kala jatha artists tried to create awareness among the people about the source segregation, need of constructing individual toilets and keeping the town clean and tidy.

Kalajatha programme, have brought in improvement in the living conditions in the slums of Virat nagar through proper awareness by teaching them solid waste management, harms of open defecations, and polluting nala’s, and the idea of hygiene at their homes as well as at communities etc. “Now the community have reached 90% success in SWM and doesn’t have any issues regarding the garbage collection and its disposal, and we are working hard to make it 100% success with your encouragement ” says Shivamma, BVM member.

• Most of the households in Virat nagar have individual toilets expect for very few houses.
• Initially many of the households do not have the individual water supply connections they use to fetch water from public taps . But the recent renovation effort by SaciWATERs with an assistance from WaterAid have installed to 2 bore motors pumps with a greater pressure and have solved the water issues in the community.
• “After the project intervention and through BVM platform, we saw an active participation from the residents in solving Basthi level WASH issues and support for overall development of the slum. We also started giving awareness on SWM to the residents who are still not segregating the waste, and made sure that no one would dispose the waste in Nala” says BVM members and
• “If anyone violates the rules we warns them not to dump the waste in Nala and if they don’t listen we may cut the power supply to their house till they change their attitude “says colony president and BVM member Ramesh.
• Later if we face any issues regarding the garbage we all sit together including garbage collectors and solve the issue.

SaciWATERs team through BVM was able to mobilise these people to make them aware of the Solid waste management, WASH and also taken the community to Sewerage treatment plant to make them aware about process involved in the SWM from the collection of waste to treatment and till disposal.

Looking forward to maintain the efficiency of Solid Waste Management services in Virat nagar and other intervention areas as well such as segregation, collection, and safe disposal by supporting the GHMC and also forging partnership with different players in this sector. This brings to light the challenges that these residents, owing to their location and their effort to bring the behavioural change in the community, and a sense of responsibility for their home and immediate environment