Those of us familiar with the writings of Franz Kafka would quite possibly be able to relate to what Kafkaesque means: it is a situation which feels surreal, bizarre, unreal, almost nightmarish…which is what residents of many of the cities rated in the Swachh Survekshan feel every year when the ratings are announced. While the officials exult seeing the improved ratings in the Swachh Survekshan announced on 16th July, validating the hard work put in by them over the year to improve the ratings, the residents of many of those cities are left wondering what really is happening!

Having seen the situation in Gurugram and Bangalore first hand, both as someone residing in Bangalore and closely interacting with people working on solid waste management in Gurugram, I have been witnessing the state of solid waste management in both cities. It is nothing short of bizarre to see both cities actually improve their rankings in 2024 (Gurugram has jumped to 41 climbing nearly 100 ranks, Bangalore is ranked 36th among the 44 million plus cities), in spite of the divergent lived experience of the residents and regular news articles in the newspapers reporting about the poor state of collection, open dumpsites, poor source segregation, blockage of drains resulting in flooding even at the slightest hint of rains….even as their Swachh Survekshan dashboards show them scoring high on cleanliness, waste processing and door-to-door collection. We have been hearing similar reactions from Lucknow as well, where the rating seems far removed from the reality. One of the reasons might be that the Swachh Survekshan ratings are relative and not absolute (unlike the Garbage Free City star ratings), which only means that these cities are better than the ones below them. That could be one plausible explanation, but a look at the dashboards, which show 99% waste processed, 100% visual cleanliness in residential areas etc., raises more questions than it answers. These high percentages on the dashboard create problems for NGOs and active citizens working on the ground to actually improve the segregation percentages and visual cleanliness.

This is not to say that the city corporations have not made efforts to improve the solid waste management situation over the years. Gurugram, for instance, ended its long-term contract with Ecogreen, the concessionaire appointed to manage the collection and processing of waste in the city, over non-performance. The Haryana government declared a SWM emergency in June’24, and even though no concrete action plan for the entire city is in place, yet MCG is investing in waste collection vehicles and also trying to enforce compliance of bulk waste generators through a portal-based monitoring system. Incentives for in-situ processing of waste have been announced, and decentralised on-site composting models are working well in the city. Dry waste centres run by empanelled entrepreneurs are also coming up in multiple locations in the city. Efforts are also being made to improve the collection and processing of construction and demolition waste.

Bangalore has 7 composting plants for processing wet waste, multiple decentralised biogas plants and a good ecosystem of vendors for handling bulk waste generators. Similarly, the city has a unique benefit in the form of decentralised dry waste collection centres in most of the wards, which are operated by entrepreneurs and waste workers. With the WTE plant in Bidadi coming up, there is also an end destination for the combustible fraction of non-recyclable dry waste. Additionally, Bangalore has identified link workers for IEC, Marshalls for issuing fines for non-segregation and waste dumping, and Supervisors for monitoring in every ward. If effectively galvanised, they can be a strong force for change, provided there is a consistent push from the top. Bangalore Solid Waste Management Ltd was created to specifically address the city’s solid waste management, but the change in ownership from BBMP to BSWML is yet to reflect in the on-ground and is leading to passing of the buck between the two entities. With the latest move to dissolve BBMP into five new corporations under Greater Bengaluru Area, the uncertainty about ownership of SWM operations has only increased.

Both cities have a vibrant civil society with eco-champions across the city who have created pockets of excellence in the cities. Bangalore has a well-defined bye-law for solid waste management, and a draft bye-law was in circulation for Gurugram. These bye-laws, if implemented in the right spirit, can bring about positive changes on the ground. What fails the cities’ solid waste management in most cases is a lack of collective responsibility to put together an accountable collection system, which ensures that the well segregated waste from the waste generators reaches the processing end destinations instead of the landfill. As long as the contractors get paid for dropping the waste at the landfill, in proportion to the waste dropped or are not closely monitored for dropping their waste at designated processing centers, this situation is not going to change.

Contrary to administrative opinion, source segregation isn’t the biggest challenge. With some amount of IEC and strict monitoring, source segregation percentage of 60–70% is not difficult to achieve. What is most critical is how the segregated waste is transported and if it is reaching the right end destinations, which involves monitoring the collection and measuring the waste dropped at each identified end destination. If the municipal corporations can take ownership of ensuring 100% door-to-door collection and identifying appropriate end destinations for all the waste stream, entrepreneurs (formed out of waste worker collectives) can be entrusted with operating the processing centres as per compliance requirements. Municipal corporations will need to ensure that the domestic hazardous waste, including sanitary waste, and the non-recyclable waste are sent to the authorised disposal facilities either through collection agencies appointed by them or entrepreneurs who are paid to handle these streams. A mix of decentralised and centralised processing facilities can be set up, based on the availability of land, and other local conditions.

The problem of waste can’t be wished away with short-term, ad-hoc measures or by improved rankings which don’t reflect the on-ground scenario. It is also not a problem where one size fits all, and the municipal corporations, sometimes controlled by state actors, can’t just copy-paste solutions from other cities/countries. Waste needs localised solutions which work for the city, within the framework of the very progressive Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 (currently under revision). Strict monitoring of every actor in the waste management chain, which eliminates the lure of saving operational costs by reducing collection coverage or not taking the waste to the assigned end destinations, is the only way by which cities can achieve real swachhata.