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City of West Hollywood
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E-Waste recycling collection.
May 15, 2010
The Impact of Privatization of Solid Waste Collection and Transportation in Delhi: The Impact on the informal Recycling Sector
he Impact of Privatization of Solid Waste Collection and Transportation in Delhi: The Impact on the informal Recycling Sector
Background
Since the late 1990s, two important public interest litigations have been filed in the Supreme Court, the highest court in India. Both demand greater accountability from the municipality for cleaner cities. The first, B.L. Vadhera Vs the Union of India, resulted in several court orders, even personal appearances of senior officials in the Court and rules being created for Hospital Waste. The second case, Almitra Patel Vs. The Union of India, has resulted in rules being made for Municipal Solid Waste. The case was also focused on technology as a primary solution for a cleaner country.
Apart from their individual outcomes, both these cases resulted in great pressure on the municipal authorities to perform their tasks in a more efficient manner. The media keenly reported the proceedings and frequently mocked municipal inability to meet the courts’ and public’s exacting standards.
Continuous court pressure and frustrated attempts to clean the city was an important reason for the municipalities in Delhi to seek privatization as an opportunity to respond to the courts. Subhash Chopra, a vocal member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly has stated, “privatization of garbage collection and disposal will be for the city. The MCD has been a total failure on this count.”
Other Roads to Privatization
Another reason was the change in Delhi’s own position as the capital of an increasingly important player in the global economy. The Masterplan 2021 includes many new features that are geared towards international conferences, entertainment etc. The problem of waste handling and a filthy city remained an environmental and visual impediment to the new city. With legislation that encouraged investment in services and several developing countries seeking to privatize waste management, Delhi was encouraged to do so too, as part of its quest to be what is often described as a ‘world class city.”
Another important reason was Commonwealth Games, scheduled to be held in 2009 in Delhi. The leader of the Delhi Parliament described the need, “All these measures would enable Delhi to become a clean and neat city, which is the need of the hour in view of the fact that the Commonwealth Games are due to take place in 2010 and thousands of foreign tourists would be visiting Delhi. There is a need to give a complete facelift to the Municipal Solid Waste Management System in MCD.”
Hence, privatization of waste collection and transportation (hereby referred to as privatization) was not just a policy, but indicated a fundamental loss of confidence in the ability of the municipality to supply the city with essential services. The decision also indicated the perceived new needs of a rapidly changing Capital City.
This paper unpacks the interaction between the informal sector and the private waste contractors and the impact of privatization on the informal sector in Delhi. It uses the unfolding of privatization in Delhi and global experiences to understand the issue and to suggest how waste can be handled in an equitable manner.
Framing Privatization
There have been several ways by which governments across the world have approached privatization of services. The early ideas of privatization began in the late 1970s and 1980s, with governments like that of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the USA. In this context, privatization came to mean a shift in activities or functions from the state to the private sector as well as the shift of production of goods from the public to the private sector. Governments then began to stop directly producing services, but enacting legislation and the framework for these to be privately produced.
In this case, privatization has been ‘privatization by attrition,’ as the quality of services was seen to be allowed to run down and in need of urgent reinvigoration.
In India, privatization of solid waste handling has two components, from the municipal perspective. The first is related to transportation of the waste and the second to its appropriate disposal, recycling or use in waste to energy projects.
Privatization of waste handling in Delhi is currently limited to the MCD. It has been framed by officials here as a taking over of existing municipal systems for more efficient functioning. Hence, the waste contracts demand efficient collection from the dhalaos, transportation to the landfill and a stage wise segregation of the waste.
A few of the most significant clauses in the contract are as follows:
Article 5.15 : Sale/distribution of recyclable substances
The concessionaire shall be free to sell or otherwise dispose of recyclable substances and other materials recovered from the Municipal Solid Waste at such price and to such persons and using such marketing and selling arrangements and strategies as it may deem appropriate.
Article 5.19d : Endeavor to improve the ancillary conditions and infrastructure related to the project, including assistance to the project including assistance to informal recycling workers Article 5.19l. Be responsible for all the health, security, environment and safety aspects of the project at all times during the concession period. Article 5.19t :Endeavour to employ the informal Municipal Solid Waste collectors within the concession area to carry out the work of collection and segregation of MSW, in accordance with this agreement and applicable law. Article 6 : MCD Obligations : Give all assistance to the concessionaire to employ the existing informal Municipal Solid Waste collectors including rag pickers and assist the concessionaire in solving issues arising from the redeployment and employment of such waste collectors by the concessionaire
Therefore, the contract shows that the MCD is aware of the sector.
In the context of this discussion, the following aspects of the contract must be kept in mind:
The private contractor is paid for the waste collected by weight The ownership of the recyclable waste lies with the contracting company The private contractors have the right to manage the dhalaos as their own spaces , with rights to advertise on the walls and to fence off the waste dumped there Additional spaces to store the segregated dry waste will be allocated to the contractors during the 8 year contract period. The contractor is expected to segregate waste in a graded manner over time
Therefore, despite how it is framed in official discourse, privatization in Delhi is not a direct transfer of a set of services from the government to the private sector. A new role, in keeping with evolving thinking by technical experts, and the changing nature of the city itself, was created for the private company. Both the collection and disposal services provided by the government and the segregation services by the informal sector, were handed over to the private contractor. Public assets of built land and space were also handed over as part of the contract.
II. Implementing Privatization
In order to implement the process, the IDFC (Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation), was contracted to manage the process of privatization on a turnkey basis. A global tender was put out and bids sought. There were no detailed discussions or consultations with any other interest groups, except for an initial meeting prior to the writing of the bid. During this meeting, there was intense opposition by NGOs to the privatization on various counts. These included the in-build disincentive for waste generators to segregate, the marginalization of the informal recycling sector and the level of private involvement. The last point was based on whether the contractor should also be involved in collecting waste from the households or not. There was no further discussion.
Finally three companies were selected and their work was scheduled to begin in June 2005.
The most notable amongst the private companies, Delhi Waste Management (DWM), is a consortium of transportation companies and financiers. What sets this company aside is that it was allocated what were perceived by the competing companies and the municipal workers as the most ‘lucrative’ zones. The others were allotted zones that were less developed, or older and therefore, with poorer infrastructure and with less influential residents.
Each contractor was to ensure that the waste in the dhalao (an intermediary transfer point, often like a room ) was segregated, the dhalao and its defined surroundings of 25 feet was clean and the waste was collected and transported at regular hours to the landfill. Each contractor was given a list of existing dhalaos to ease their work.
Prior to this, for over two years, the Delhi Government initiated the Bhagidari (literal meaning : partnership) scheme where middle and high income residential areas were trained to understand the importance of segregation of waste into dry and wet categories. This programme was well publicized and several hundred residents from the more affluent parts of Delhi were invited to attend these trainings. This does not seem to have been implemented, since the waste arrived at the bins in an unsegregated manner, despite a law that made it mandatory for waste generators to segregate. The task of the private company therefore was not impacted by the Bhagidari scheme, underlying the failure of the exercise. This failure also drove home the point that residents were unlikely segregate their waste and an external agency would have to continue to do so for them. Traditionally, the informal recycling sector has always segregated the waste and sold it in the chain for
