Thrust on modernising solid waste disposal and sanitary worker safety, says CM

Puducherry Chief Minister focuses on modernizing waste disposal, improving sanitation worker safety, and implementing zero-waste policy.

The government is prioritising modernisation of solid waste disposal measures and improving the health safety of sanitary workers while maintaining a clean Puducherry, Chief Minister N. Rangasamy said on Monday.

Inaugurating a skill development workshop for sanitation workers on preventing hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks in urban local bodies under the joint auspices of the Oulgaret Municipality and Genrobotic Innovations firm, Mr. Rangasamy said identifying a landfill for accumulating solid waste collected from across the city had been a vexed issue as residents objected to dumping of garbage anywhere near their neighbourhoods.

This had necessitated the advocacy of a zero-waste policy with an industry-scale and technology-driven approach to solid waste disposal and efforts were now aimed at the same-day disposal of collected and segregated waste at the Kurumbapet landfill.

The workshop was held under the NAMASTE (National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem) central sector scheme of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment aimed at ensuring the dignity, safety, and social and economic empowerment of sanitation workers, specifically those engaged in cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

Noting that many sanitation sector workers died young, the Chief Minister said in cognisance of the hazardous nature of their work, the government has been providing jobs to the next of kin on compassionate grounds of employees of municipalities and commune panchayats. Soon, jobs would be provided on compassionate grounds to the next of kin from around 200 families of the Pondicherry Municipality, he said.

The Chief Minister said the underground sewerage network was being expanded and the process of treating-discharging sewage has reached more areas. An estimated 90% of the work is over.

Work is also under way to repair blockages in the underground sewers in the city. When such blockages occur and are repaired, there is a risk of toxic gas attack on the sanitation workers. The administration was keen to adopt new innovations such as robotic machines to sewage extraction and removing blockages in underground sewers to reduce health risk to humans, he said.