In a surprise move that raised eyebrows and grabbed eyeballs, an IAS officer was seen going door to door to collect waste from people’s homes. The officer is Prasanna H, the CEO of Zila Panchayat, Udupi, Karnataka. He made a surprise visit to a gram panchayat of the district, went to people’s doors, and collected the waste himself. A video of his waste collection went viral on social media in no time and received likes and comments galore.
Speaking with Indian Masterminds, Mr. Prasanna H shared the reason for the surprise visit to the gram panchayat and the subsequent waste collection.
SURPRISE VISIT
Mr. Prasanna said that the reason why he paid a surprise visit to the gram panchayat was to interact with the people directly and identify the problems faced by them and the safai karmacharis. He said, “I was getting a number of complaints regarding waste management from the waste collectors, so I thought that I should do a surprise visit to the gram panchayats and verify the problems and see how things can be improved further so that we can achieve our goal.”
The officer himself drove the vehicle for waste collection in the morning with a few labourers and planning officers, interacted with the public, and collected the wastes. He also identified several problems, like people not handing over segregated waste and some field problems which are needed to be looked into.
“Some people are not giving dry waste to waste collectors saying that they only have a small quantity of waste. Few are saying that the village panchayat is charging around 50-100 rupees and that’s why they are not giving it, while few are handing over mixed waste,” the officer said.
He said his visit was also an attempt to ensure permanent black spot eradication. After this visit, the local level officers also started visiting door to door to identify any problem. “Normally, we ask our local level officer to visit the houses, get the feedback and identify their problems. However, in my one surprise visit, the entire district got activated and people started giving the segregated waste,” Mr. Prasanna said.
NOT WASTE BUT RESOURCE
He further said that in their district, waste is actually considered a resource. “Since last one year, we have started the Material Resource Facility (MRF) centre. We send the collected waste to the centre where it is segregated to around 26 types of wastes, and after baling, sold to generate some income. That’s why we call waste a resource in our district,” Mr. Prasanna said.
The administration had requested the state government and got sanctioned the three mini MRFs. In another 3-4 months, they will be able to start those MRFs as well.
In 148 of the total 155 panchayats in the district, door-to-door waste collection is already taking place with 70% of the households coming forward to give their wastes to the waste collectors. “Our goal is to collect 100% waste door to door so that no one throws it on roadside or in water bodies,” the officer said.
