PANAJI
Despite generating over 29,000 tonnes of plastic waste on an average annually, Goa is one among those few States who have failed to setup Plastic Waste Management Unit in village blocks -- one of the prime criteria of Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) (Gramin).
As per the information tabled in the Lok Sabha, the Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has said that Goa along with nine other States have not yet set up a Plastic Waste Management Unit, while there are 978 Plastic Units currently operational across India.
As per the Ministry, setting up of such a unit is one of the major criteria of phase II of Swacch Bharat Mission (Gramin) to make villages ‘visually clean’. Setting up of Plastic Waste Management Unit will also ensure minimal littering, stagnation of water and no accumulation of plastic waste in the form of a dump.
As per the data, since 2018-19, till November 2024, Goa has generated a whopping 1,76,971.32 tonnes of plastic waste.
The data shows that the plastic waste generation remained stagnant between 2020-21 to 2022-23 at 29,441 tonnes per annum.
In 2018-19, the State had generated 32,580.52 tonnes of plastic, which dropped to 26,068 in 2019-20, with a sharp rise thereafter.
In 2023-24, almost 32,000 tonnes of plastic waste was generated.
The Ministry informed that as far as setting up of Plastic Waste Management Unit is concerned, the SBM(G) Phase II guidelines provide financial assistance of up to Rs 16 lakh per Block for construction of a unit. Additionally, depending on requirement, Plastic Waste Management Units can be set up in cluster mode for more than one block within the overall funding limits available for those blocks.
As per the SBM (Gramin) Phase-II operational guideline, there must be one Plastic Waste Management Unit in each block, if clustering is not possible.
The Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 mandate local bodies and gram panchayats for collection and transportation of plastic waste. Guidelines have been issued under Swachh Bharat Mission for door to door collection of solid waste including plastic waste for urban and rural areas of the country.
The Ministry said that following directions, the States, during their Annual Implementation Plan have planned to set up Plastic Waste Management Units and linkages of blocks with urban facilities in over 3,700 Blocks.
