Pune: SWaCH Waste Pickers Raise Questions About Waste Management As They Oppose Privatization 

Pune, January 23, 2021: In the backdrop of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Standing Committee’s decision to invite private tenders for the waste management in Pune, a delegation of 100 SWaCH waste pickers represented their concerns to PMC’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) department officials at Savitribai Phule Sabhagruh, Bhawani Peth on January 22.

Expressing concerns over their uncertain future that would be prey to the whims and fancies of private contractors Rani Shivsharan, a Swach waste-picker representative from Hadapsar said, “We are told that we won’t lose our work, and the new contractor would look after us instead of SWaCH. But SWaCH is us and we are SWaCH. A contractor is an additional layer between us and the PMC. We will lose our agency in our lives. We have built our cooperative through hard work and care. We are the decision makers in the organisation. Our staff are accountable to us. Which private contractor would form an elected body of 180 wastepickers and a board of waste pickers and work under our leadership? We request you to support SWaCH. For us, that’s the only way forward.”

She said reminding everyone of how SWaCH is more than just work for its members. “If the model has been garnering awards the world over, including one at the hands of our Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, it must deserve some credit. Why would you repeal a viable, tested, lauded model and instead chose to tender out our welfare?”, she questioned.

Saru Waghmare, reminded the officials how far SWM and SWaCH have travelled starting from zero doorstep collection and no segregation to a city where every citizen is woke to this concept. “We have stood by ourselves and worked relentlessly even when no one recognized our work. We formed our cooperative in partnership with the PMC in 2007 and it has truly changed our lives and the city. And now you are trying to disband and weaken us again. ”

Waghmare, a senior board member of SWaCH, reminded the officials about how 15 years ago, waste pickers single-handedly laboured to gain acceptance for the highly transparent and efficient user fee model, with minimal support from corporators and authorities.

“So many Corporators have turned a deaf ear to any whisper of non-payment of user fees by citizens and even ran free parallel models that resulted in more dumping and less recycling. It took a while for citizens to realize that free models incur high financial costs and irreparable environmental damage and lack accountability, and today when the citizens are ready to work with our optimal model, everyone wants to step in and take over the system.”

Pointing out how SWaCH was more than a waste collection organization, Vidya Naiknaware, another SWaCH member said, “SWaCH is our safety net. While the network of waste-pickers provides waste collection services to citizens, SWaCH provides its members with a community and a family to depend on. We have formed SWaCH to take care of ourselves when no-one else was interested. From birth to death, SWaCH tackles all our issues. From hospital support when a child is born to school admissions, RTE applications, private and public scholarships, education and career counselling, college admissions, medical support, the abolition of child labour and child marriage, support for weddings and divorces, legal cases, protection from domestic violence, property disputes, for rations, pensions and even for funeral expenses. In fact, when the administration drags its feet, SWaCH ensures that we get PPE, uniforms, gloves, masks etc. and even raised its own money to build sorting sheds. SWaCH also facilitates loans for us in the times of need, from our credit cooperative and finance companies. Would any new contractor or organisation do that? They are strangers to us as we are to them and our sense of community and caring will be lost”

Even in the Covid-19 lockdown, waste pickers did not stop work. Balu Pawar, a board member of SWaCH said, “Many SWaCH members lived inside the containment zones. We climbed over the barricades, pushed our carts several kilometres, but made sure that our work didn’t stop. During the extremely difficult times of lockdown, our regular attendance was at 95%. We collected for free when citizens didn’t have money to pay us. Throughout Covid, only SWaCH and its allied organisations gave us cash support, PPE kits and rations. PMC gave PP sufficient for three months, but we’ve raised our PPE for 7 months and counting. The spread of Covid would have worsened if our PPE equipment wasn’t provided by SWaCH. Since PMC failed to cover life insurance during Lockdown, we got our own. We raised support for raincoats because PMC failed to give us any. We were supposed to get a small incentive for working during the lockdown, but we haven’t received it yet. It takes forever to get beneficial decisions passed by the PMC, yet we do not stop work because we know the citizens will suffer. But, decisions like tendering out our life’s work move overnight. Would a contractor continue to work if he did not get paid on time?”

“Our Corporators and citizens have all expressed their support for us”, said Shobha Kamble, adding, “If our local elected representatives are supporting our cooperative then who is against it? We don’t understand who is against our work?”

“We have built SWaCH, from scratch, to protect ourselves from exploitation by private contractors and raise ourselves out of poverty and destitution, with support from commissioners, elected representatives and citizens over 15 years. Now our hard work is being stolen and handed over to private contractors. We will not stand for it. If there are complaints, tell us and we will resolve them. But don’t steal our lives work and tender it to private contractors.”, appealed Rani Shivsharan to the officers present at the meeting.

SWaCH strongly opposes the privatisation of waste management in Pune as it poses a serious threat to the Atmarnirbharata (self-reliance) of waste pickers.

Present at the occasion were Dr Kunal Khemnar, Additional Municipal Commissioner, PMC, Madhav Jagtap, Dy. Commissioner PMC, Dr Ketaki Ghatge, Medical Officer, PMC, as well as Harshad Barde, Lakshmi Narayan and 100 waste-picker members of SWaCH.