<p>Joint Committee inspection report in the matter of Kailash Kumar Changani Vs State of Rajasthan & Others. The matter related to violation of the Bio Medical Waste Management Rules, 2016 by wrongly
The Guntur Municipal Corporation leaves no stone unturned to ensure the city's all-round growth. THE Municipal Corporation of Guntur dreams big for the residents of the city, which has a more than 200-year-old history. It has achieved many firsts in its relatively brief existence of less than 20 years. The young corporation also has the youngest Mayor in the country, 23-year-old Kanna Nagaraju. The 52-member Municipal Council is guided by the young dynamic Municipal Commissioner Siddhartha Jain. Guntur means the village of tanks. It is believed that this village first came up close to what is known as the Red Tank. The French held Kondaveedu, a nearby village, from A.D. 1732 and built a fort to the east of the area now known as Old Guntur. The French commander constructed houses for himself and for his troopers towards the north of present-day Nallacheruvu (Black Tank) and this area was called New Guntur. One of the fastest developing Tier-III cities in Andhra Pradesh, Guntur has pride of place among municipal corporations in the State. A vibrant city, home to some of the wealthiest traders in cotton, chillis and tobacco, Guntur has fast metamorphosed into a modern city with an array of glittering shopping malls, restaurants and commercial complexes dotting the skyline. Providing basic civic amenities to a growing city with a population of over seven lakh has been a demanding task for the local body. It, however, has achieved many firsts, and dreams of providing 24-hour water supply to domestic and industrial consumers and meet the needs of the industrial corridor that is fast coming up between Vijayawada and Guntur. The corridor is expected to convert these into major Twin Cities of Andhra Pradesh after Hyderabad and Secunderabad. The GMC has achieved remarkable progress in augmenting basic amenities such as drinking water supply, sanitation, street lighting and solid waste management. It also has an efficient system in place to redress public grievances. "The GMC is highly responsive to civic problems and innovative in toning up its administrative machinery,' said District Collector Mohammad Ali Rafath. SANITATION A series of special drives has been launched by the Municipal Commissioner to augment the quality of basic services such as sanitation. The three-bin system has become a reality in many apartment complexes in the city and garbage clearance is 100 per cent. A week-long special sanitation drive in the city identified several issues, and short-term and long-term plans have been envisaged to solve them. For solid waste management, the GMC got a grant of Rs.1.26 crore from the Twelfth Finance Commission, which was spent on procuring dumper bins and tricycles. Today local residents' welfare associations take care of 50 per cent of the house-to-house garbage collection system. The use of coloured plastic bins for waste segregation at source has been introduced in some commercial areas too. Seventy-six acres of land was recently acquired in Yedlapadu mandal for dumping waste. Works such as construction of drains, laying of roads, improvement of road junctions and development of burial grounds were taken up at a cost of Rs.24 crore. Siddhartha Jain said: "People should be proud of the city they live in and be motivated to be part of the planned development. A systematic approach to administration and planning is the need of the hour. Special drives to improve sanitation and provide water supply connections will help in identifying several issues.' MEDICAL CAMP Mayor Kanna Nagaraju. At 23, he is the youngest Mayor in India. The municipal body is going beyond its principal mandate of providing basic amenities to the people; the GMC organises mega medical camps. The camps held on the Sri Patibandla Sitaramaiah High School grounds in December every year witnesses a huge turnout. The latest camp attracted more than 15,000 people. A team of 85 doctors from 20 specialisations attended to 13,400 patients. Medicines costing Rs.8.4 lakh were distributed. As many as 180 paramedical staff, students of nursing colleges and 370 cadets of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) volunteered their services. The success of the camp motivated some private hospitals and clinics to offer follow-up medical service for the patients. They would be treated for a month at a hospital of their choice. One of the most daunting tasks for the corporation is to ensure potable drinking water for the entire city. Guntur, which does not have a raw water source, depends on the Guntur Channel and the Buckingham Channel to supply 80 million litres per day (MLD) against the total ideal assessed demand of 121 MLD. The centuries-old water source at Sangam Jagarlamudi has been renovated thanks to the special interest shown by the Mayor. A water filtration plant of 10 million gallons per day has been commissioned and four reservoirs have been built at L.B. Nagar, Srinivasarao Thota, R.T.C. Colony and Stambalagaruvu. Rise in rEVENUE The corporation saw a turnaround in its finances with a near 100 per cent collection of tax and non-tax revenue from individuals and commercial establishments. Innovative steps taken by Deputy Commissioner N. Yadagiri Rao to boost revenue collection have yielded results; of the total 1.14 lakh assessments, 941 were new assessments. The revenue wing has been trifurcated
New York is a step closer to adopting one of the toughest electronics recycling laws in the nation, despite strong objections from manufacturers and mayor Michael R Bloomberg. The city council approved a Bill last week that would impose a $100 fine on anyone who throws an old computer, printer or other electronic gadget into the trashbin. Recycling the electronic waste will become mandatory and manufacturers will be required to take back their own products as well as those made by Companies that have gone out of business. The council estimated that New Yorkers purchase more than 90,000 tonnes of electronic products every year. The gadgets contain hazards like lead and mercury, and most end up in the trash. If the new measure becomes law, the city's voluntary electronics collection and recycling programmes would be replaced by a variety of programmes designed and run by Sony, Dell and other electronics manufacturers. Those efforts could include curbside pickups, returns by mail and neighbourhood collections. Manufacturers could pick the type of recycling programme they preferred, said councilman Bill de Blasio who, with councilman Michael E McMahon, was a prime sponsor of the bill. The Companies would have to take back enough pieces of equipment to meet mandatory tonnage standards set in the bill or face stiff fines. Bloomberg has made it clear that he will not support mandatory thresholds. "The administration supports
Waste Management Inc., the nation's largest garbage hauler, said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit rose 26 percent on tax benefits and the sale of some operations, though higher fuel prices cut into income. The company said earnings rose to $309 million, or 61 cents per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31 versus $246 million, or 46 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue increased to $3.36 billion from $3.28 billion in the year-ago period.
peanut shella are an effective tool for cleaning wastewater. The agricultural waste removes poisonous copper ions from industrial wastewater. A new study says the shells perform better than many
Industrial units illegally dump hazardous waste in remote fields, often crossing state borders, to dodge the law and cut costs. <b><font class='UCASE'>ravleen kaur</font></b> travels to Tumkur and Chamrajnagar in Karnataka to find out how untreated wast
Investing in sanitation and hygiene is not only about saving human lives and dignity; it is the foundation for investing in human development, especially in poor urban and peri-urban areas.
In view of the environmental problems generated by large-scale production of fly ash, increasing attention is now being paid to the recycling of fly ash as a good source of nutrients. Because availability of many nutrients is very low in fly ash, available ranges of such nutrients must be improved to increase the effectiveness of fly ash as a soil amendment. In our experiment, we assessed the possibility of increasing total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total potassium and micronutrients in fly ash through
Nitric acid treated rice husk was used for adsorption of two textile dyes Congo red (CR) and Black E (BE).
Tannery waste disposal problem leads to environmental disharmony, which makes it one of the major industrial pollution facing the country. The tannery industries, release a lot of wastes in the form of liquid (effluent) and solid (sludge). Biological sludge is one of the wastes, which has been utilized for recycling in this research work.
