The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has sought approval to appoint government-owned PSU RITES as a consultant for modernising five dry waste segregation centres, citing a shortage of dedicated staff to plan and supervise its solid waste management projects.
The proposed consultancy is estimated to cost about Rs 93 lakh. According to civic officials, RITES has the required technical expertise and has already carried out some work related to the project. The proposal requires approval from the civic standing committee.
The five centres are expected to be upgraded into material recovery facilities, where recyclable material can be separated, processed and directed for sale. The BMC’s stated aim is to improve recycling and reduce the quantity of waste sent to landfills.
Officials said existing BMC officers are unable to devote their full time to project planning, tendering, quality control and supervision because they also handle other administrative responsibilities. The consultant’s proposed responsibilities include technical evaluation, project preparation, site inspections, feasibility reports, tender document preparation, assistance during the tendering process and technical supervision.
Mumbai currently has 41 dry waste centres. The city collects between 6,500 and 7,000 tonnes of solid waste each day, of which an estimated 30% to 40% is dry waste, including plastic, paper and other recyclable material. The scale of this waste stream makes the functioning of segregation centres important to the city’s landfill dependence and recycling chain.
At present, segregation at the centres is carried out largely by ragpickers manually, according to a civic official. The proposed modernisation would introduce baling machines, conveyor systems and segregation units. The BMC said these changes are intended to improve working conditions and increase the speed of segregation.
Under the proposed system, waste would be separated into saleable and non-saleable material. Saleable material generates revenue for the non-government organisations and ragpickers working at the centres, while non-saleable waste is sent to the Kanjurmarg dumping ground, the civic official said.
The proposal has also revived concerns within the civic body about the growing use of consultants for municipal functions. Congress corporator Ashraf Azmi questioned why an external consultant was needed when the BMC’s solid waste management department already has a planning wing. He said the civic body could eventually end up outsourcing basic services.
Rajkumar Sharma, coordinator of the NGO Agni, said waste segregation had not taken off across the city and argued that the civic body should examine systems used in other countries. His comments point to a wider implementation challenge: upgrading infrastructure alone may not ensure effective segregation unless collection, sorting, worker participation and downstream recycling are coordinated.
The immediate decision before the civic standing committee is whether to approve RITES as the technical consultant for the five-centre modernisation project. The BMC’s subsequent steps will include project preparation, tendering and technical supervision if the proposal is cleared.
