From Toilet Café To Innovative Waste Management Models, A Look At Swachh Bharat Exhibits At #VibrantGujarat 2019

Mumbai: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 18 inaugurated the 9th edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar. In the run up to the start of the Summit, the Prime Minister inaugurated the Global Trade Show at the Exhibition centre on Thursday and visited multiple stalls including the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan exhibition, which displayed innovative ways in which sanitation quotient can be enhanced.

Among the different exhibits under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban, PM Modi visited the Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) stall which highlighted corporation’s ‘Swachhata se Sundarta ki Aur’ (From Cleanliness to Beautiful) model that focusses of mass beautification of civil infrastructure, slum areas and major traffic intersections and an Integrated Command and Control Centre (ICCC) for collection and transportation of waste.

Under the Smart City mission, ICCC acts as a single roof for reporting, monitoring and control of various public welfare programmes including solid waste management. Through this project, the RMC will track the collection and transport of waste on real time basis through a network of 500 high resolution CCTV cameras.

Hyderabad’s Loo-café model is also on display for the visitors at the exhibition. Inspired by the concept of Swiss Knife, the model showcases the smart pre-fabricated loos equipped with toilet, sanitary napkin dispenser Café, ATM, Wi-Fi, FM Radio, and Mobile Charging Station. The brochures at the stall also mentions that the Loo Café has a dedicated radio station on ‘hygiene’.

The first Loo Café in Hyderabad was constructed at Shilparamam in May last year with an estimated cost of nearly Rs. 10 lakh.  It will be soon placed in over 60+ locations across Hyderabad with plans to expand this initiative across the nation. According to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, the idea behind developing a such a swanky toilet is to change the perception of people that is generally associated with the public toilets in India.

The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC), which has led Indore to the title of India’s cleanest city twice in a row, exhibited the waste management model adopted by the city. The 3D model titled as ‘Achieving Zero Legacy Waste’ showcases India’s first project to treat 100 per cent of the waste dumped in the landfill over the years.

Around 15 lakh tonnes of waste accumulated in the last 50 years at trenching ground in Devguradia area in Indore was cleared in the last one year. The landfill is currently being converted into a garden.

Also Read: Swachh Survekshan 2019: 7 Cities Go Beyond ODF Status To Adopt Faecal Sludge Management

Bioremediation, a process of using living organisms such as microbes and bacteria to remove contaminants, pollutants and toxins from soil, was adopted by the IMC. As part of the process, Fresh soil was layered on old soil. The new soil will be used to grow plants. 10 segregation machines were used to separate residues such as plastic, clothes and other material which were then sent for recycling.

While Indore presents a model on treating waste accumulated in the past, India’s second cleanest city in 2018, Bhopal’s exhibit is about an ‘Integrated Plastic Waste Management’ system that the city has adopted in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Sarthak NGO.

Under this model, waste pickers collect nearly 607 tonnes of non-biodegradable plastic waste per day from over 4 lakh houses of Bhopal and then hand over the plastic waste to the five collection centres run by the municipal corporation. The plastic waste is scanned, segregated and, single-use plastics — which comprise almost half of the plastic consumed are shredded and baled. These bales are than taken for co-processing at cement kilns and used to build roads. The NGO generates revenue of upto Rs. 80,000 per month from selling the recycled plastic to scrap dealers in the form of plastic sheets.

Nearly 1.5 million visitors and more than 30,000 national and international delegates, including top executives of major firms in India and abroad, are expected to attend the biennial three-day Vibrant Gujarat event in Gandhinagar. The Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show is being held on a two-lakh square metres plot of land. More than 20 industrial and business sectors will showcase their products.

Also Read: PM Modi Defines His Commitment To The Environment As Part Of Indian Culture

NDTV – Dettol Banega Swachh India campaign lends support to the Government of India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM). Helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, the campaign aims to spread awareness about hygiene and sanitation, the importance of building toilets and making India open defecation free (ODF) by October 2019, a target set by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, when he launched Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in 2014. Over the years, the campaign has widened its scope to cover issues like air pollution, waste management, plastic ban, manual scavenging and menstrual hygiene. The campaign has also focused extensively on marine pollution, clean Ganga Project and rejuvenation of Yamuna, two of India’s major river bodies.