{"id":1981,"date":"2025-10-27T18:45:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lokyoddha.co.in\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2025-10-27T18:45:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T13:15:34","slug":"124833596-cms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lokyoddha.co.in\/?p=1981","title":{"rendered":"Talking Point: What PMC\u2019s New Trash Collection Plan Will Mean For Pune"},"content":{"rendered":"
On Sept 1, 2025, Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) launched the pilot of its \u2018Vishwas 2025′ programme in Vimannagar, aimed at mechanizing and revamping the waste collection and segregation system across the city. By Oct, it announced the pilot’s “success” and declared plans to expand it to other areas.However, at least 16 members of the SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling) cooperative, who have been engaged in doorstep collection of garbage in the area for several years, said they been left out of the new system and unpaid since Sept 16. Close to 4,000 members of this waste pickers’ trade union feel the shift has left their future hanging in the balance. They said PMC has made scant efforts to integrate their workforce, despite verbal assurances of the same. The waste pickers, mostly from economically and socially weaker backgrounds, are concerned about the citywide transition, fearing permanent displacement and loss of vital structured incomes. A large section of waste pickers includes women and the elderly, many of whom are sole breadwinners for their families. Many city residents \u2014 users of SWaCH services \u2014 also raised doubts about PMC’s proposed mechanized waste collection, ending a system with a human touch that was active for over two decades. Pilot run in Vimannagar SWaCH has pioneered Pune’s door-to-door-collection (DTDC) model, but Vishwa 2025 entails putting the onus back on residents to deliver trash to a designated truck. Each PMC van will be assigned to visit a fixed number of societies on a schedule. PMC’s deputy commissioner in-charge of the solid waste management, Sandip Kadam, told TOI, “We launched the pilot in sections of Vimannagar as there were complaints of bird hits and stray animals at the airport, linked to waste lying around.” The neighbourhood houses the city’s airport and a defence air base, both of which have become vulnerable to the effects of urban animal presence. Several empty plots in the area have gradually turned into dumping grounds.“The recent Vimannagar pilot proved that when systems are well-planned, maintained and citizen-centric, results are immediately visible. Our next step is to expand to other wards. PMC is committed to developing a fully mechanized, transparent and citizen-driven waste collection system,” Kadam added. The civic body plans to extend this model in a phased manner, starting with Zone 1 as soon as Jan 2026. This zone includes areas under Dhole Patil Road, Yerawada-Kalas-Dhanori and Nagar Road-Wadgaonsheri ward offices. But waste pickers in Vimannagar said the pilot’s abrupt implementation left them out of the loop. They said the new model has entry-level barriers in terms of their skills and work hours will no longer be flexible. It will also mean contractualized minimum wage, impacting their earnings.Amogh Bhongale, outreach and communication lead at SWaCH, explained, “Instead of improving work conditions, waste pickers are forced to climb into collection vehicles for segregation, which is an unhygienic process. Members above the age of 58 need to be accommodated, too. Work should be given as per registration and skills. If someone has registered as a driver, the contractor must give them that job. Here, the contractor refused and said that there was no vacancy for a driver and forced the SWaCH member to collect waste and clean gutters. When a system changes, it should better the lives of the marginalised, not make them worse.” Kadam refuted, “All existing waste pickers can join PMC. No one will lose their jobs. We will find tasks for them based on their expertise. We will incorporate them as managing 18 lakh properties under PMC limits on our own is not feasible. Civic employment will also give waste pickers health and other benefits.” SWaCH CEO Lubna Anantakrishnan further countered that PMC has given nothing in writing. “As PMC’s vehicles take over areas in which cooperative members operate, they are immediately displaced. The existing system, designed by PMC itself, sees waste pickers paid directly by and accountable to citizens. These waste pickers, 70% of whom are women, work less than eight hours and mostly make more than minimum wage. If the city goes ahead with mechanisation, they must ensure a fair transition.” Integration far from smooth One of the first \u2014 and few \u2014 SWaCH waste pickers to work with PMC in the new system was Bhikaji Londhe. The 36-year-old worked with the civic body for two days \u2014 then quit. “On the first day, I was told to go with collection vans and spread awareness. On day two, I was told to sweep streets in Vimannagar and segregate waste dumped on the roadside with my bare hands. If this is what I have to do, what was wrong with SWaCH? I quit the PMC job and went back,” said Londhe, a waste picker with SWaCH since 2012. Londhe and his wife worked together and earned at least Rs30,000 a month in total earlier; then also got time to take up other tasks. This month, earnings are uncertain. “Both my parents are unwell. If I work with PMC, it will pay Rs22,800 per month, from which taxes and PF will cut, leaving Rs17,500. My wife continues to have no job. How can I manage the house with only this pay?” he said. Sayara Shaikh (37) has been picking up waste from the Sanjay Park area in Vimannagar for 15 years with her mother, who has done this work for over three decades. Sayara collects waste from 150 houses and earns over Rs15,000 a month. “I also sell recyclable material to earn Rs10,000 more. Then, I work as a domestic help through the day, adding another Rs15,000 to my monthly income. From 6am to 9am, I work as a waste picker, then I am free to take on other jobs. All this will be lost if PMC takes it away,” she said. “If we are to be integrated into PMC’s new model, we still have no confirmation of it. The new job means minimum wage and lesser post-taxes for an eight-hour shift. How does it uplift us?” Sayara asked. SWaCH board member and waste picker Rani Shivsharan said most of the issues they face are due to PMC’s inability to support the cooperative as it promised. “We are blamed for waste on the roads. But if garbage is lying at feeder points, it is because PMC vans run three-four hours behind schedule; sometimes, they are already half full and make a second round, which means another hour or two,” she said. “What will many of the older women waste pickers do if they are not trained to drive trucks or lift heavy buckets into vans? They will all lose their jobs. The current model benefits everyone. We earn a decent living, PMC gets segregated waste, and citizens get doorstep service,” she added.Some vouch for old system Vimannagar residents are the first to experience PMC’s proposed shift. While some are fine handing over segregated waste themselves to vans, or shelling out money to hire private staff for this, others questioned the necessity of replacing a proven system. Local resident Mita Banerjee said PMC’s new initiative works better. “We could earlier see trash piles on street corners. SWaCH waste pickers took what they needed and scattered the rest during segregation. Now, these spots are cleaner. In our society, we have an employee to collect garbage and empty it into the PMC van. Citizens also need to do better and segregate waste at the source,” she said. Another area resident, Binod Pillai, said, “Segregation points on roads were an eyesore. Even when vehicles came to pick up waste, 5-10% would be dropped and remain there for days. However, Vimannagar is still not clean. Just post-Diwali, I raised a complaint about garbage dumped, probably by hawkers, on the road. The system should be so robust that nobody dares to throw garbage in the first place.” There’s also the flipside. Beena Arjunan, a businesswoman living in the area for around two decades, said SWaCH began collecting waste from her 15 years ago and the entire process has been seamless. “These are hardworking women. They quietly do their work and go, with barely any holidays. No one volunteers to be a waste picker if they can help it. These women do the tough job, and many have even sent their children to good schools based on it. With PMC’s new initiative, their livelihoods are in question. It’s unnecessary,” she said. “PMC never bothered to discuss with citizens what our issues are or what we need in terms of cleanliness. The vans come at 6.30am and blare sirens, disturbing sleep. Some staffers have even threatened residents to ensure we give the waste to them or face a fine. We have to empty the garbage into the vans. What service is PMC providing? Do they expect me to be at home waiting for these vehicles?” Arjunan asked. She added that if residents miss a van, they may just dump garbage on the streets \u2014 which was the case before SWaCH began. Another resident, choosing anonymity, said, “This a regressive move. PMC needs to spend time on ground to understand citizens’ issues, not just announce initiatives.”Time for a new model, says civic chiefAccording to PMC commissioner Naval Kishore Ram, improper use of feeder points by waste pickers has given rise to garbage dumps on street sides, which in turn encourages passersby to dump their waste, too. He told TOI that a big motivation behind finding an alternative to the current SWaCH model is to have cleaner streets. “The SWaCH model is primitive at its core. Pune has changed considerably over the years, especially with the merger of new areas, so it’s time to revamp the garbage collection system as well. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the \u2018Indore model’. The two cities are very different,” Ram said. “In the current system, waste pickers have to wait for trucks and segregate waste by hand on the roadside. This is not only unhealthy, but creates a mess in public. Our goal is not just to get rid of feeder points, but shift the onus of segregation on citizens and pave way for cleaner roads,” he added.According to the civic chief, “Current SWaCH waste pickers will be integrated as contractual employees and get benefits, too.” He assured that PMC will be increasing the number of garbage collection vehicles and improve existing vans, while manpower deployed to sweep streets will be increased, along with sweeping vehicles.Trial and error required, says former commissionerShekhar Gaikwad, who served as PMC commissioner from Jan to July 2020, weighed in on the new initiative and said proper implementation is key. He said, “While SWaCH is doing a great job, the reason behind the switch is to minimize the number of hands that handle the waste. The new model shifts the burden on society for proper waste management. Whether it is a success or not will depend on how well it is implemented.” “However, motorizing the whole endeavour will add more vehicles on the streets in an already overcrowded city,” he added. According to Gaikwad, PMC will have to pay close attention to what works and doesn’t work in its Vimannagar pilot and chart the way forward through ‘proper trial and error’. “A balanced way must be considered to integrate current SWaCH waste pickers into the new model as well.”How does cooperative function, ask residentsA city resident, who wrote to TOI, posed a few queries to SWaCH director Harshad Barde. RK: The autonomy of the cooperative seems compromised. Decision-making power seems to be concentrated in the staff and governing body (on which a PMC official sits), not with the members’ general body. HB: SWaCH is a cooperative of, by, and for informal waste pickers of Pune. It is one of the longest standing examples of waste picker integration through a pro-poor-public-private partnership between an urban local body and informal waste pickers. Decision-making is undertaken by a council of 200 elected waste pickers (pratinidhis), which has met every month for the last 18 years. The formal cooperative board consists of 14 women waste pickers, one representative of KKPKP, and two ex-officio representatives of PMC (head of the solid waste management and social development departments). Only waste pickers have voting powers, with others being technical advisors. Municipal officials have no voting powers, but their presence is necessary to establish accountability of the city. RK: Membership fees of Rs300 per month are extracted from waste picker members, taxing them to sustain the system that marginalizes them. HB: Over 95% of income and materials flow from the citizens to waste pickers, or from PMC to waste pickers through the cooperative (e.g. slum subsidies and equipment). Only 4% of the total turnover of the model is the administrative fee, utilized for hiring staff to liaise between 40 lakh citizens, 4,000 waste pickers and PMC’s solid waste management system. SWaCH’s five-year annual budget with respect to the PMC model has been pre-decided in its contract with the civic body on a no-profit-no-loss basis and includes salary structures and budget line items. Like any membership-based organisation, SWaCH collects a monthly subscription fee from active members. These are maintained as a livelihood fund, utilized for supporting waste pickers falling outside PMC’s social welfare schemes (say due to insurance age limits), or in order to support newer livelihoods, such as expansion into areas where user fees are not guaranteed in the first few months. All norms of amount, mode of collection and control over the fund lie with the council and board of waste pickers, with no staff or PMC interference. RK: The model saves PMC Rs113 crore annually, when compared to conventional waste management contracts. This saving rests on unpaid or underpaid labour of the members. HB: Cost effectiveness of the model is not based on exploitation of workers, given key components of direct user fees, right over recyclables and autonomy of workers. The current model reduces the city’s burden by diversion of recyclable waste directly from source (200+ tonnes per day), composting at source, highly decentralized non-motorized transport, logistical efficiency of collection from 1,000 feeder points instead of 10 lakh gates, low administrative costs due to direct user fees, lower supervision due to doorstep collection, and absence of redundancy in operational costs (waste pickers only get paid equal to the amount of properties serviced). The city saves despite waste pickers earning a higher than minimum wage pro rata.<\/div>\n