COLLECTION,TRANSPORTATION AND DISPOSAL OF URBAN SOLID WASTE 53
fund and 25 percent from the State Government as a matching grant. The remaining
50 percent are the own funds of the MCH. The repayment requirements, however,
seem to go beyond the current capacity of the MCH and may force the authorities to
solicit another Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) loan. This
indicates that the financial viability of the system of SWC is somewhat disquieting. It
is likely to remain an Achilles heel until some kind of cost recovery will be introduced.
However, there are currently no plans to charge residents user fees.
Contributions to public health and environmental aspects of sustainable development
Cleanliness of neighbourhoods
Sweeping, collection and transportation of waste is carried out on a regular, daily basis
in all units, at least on paper. However, according to the survey among households in
areas serviced by the MCH and private contractors, the frequency of sweeping, collec-
tion and cleaning of waste bins in their areas is overwhelmingly perceived to be less
than once per day. Levels of satisfaction are slightly higher in privately operated areas
where frequency and cleanliness have improved in comparison to the situation five
years ago when the MCH executed the work. However, service levels in the
MCH-serviced units have gone up as well because the municipal labour force, which
was about half the normative required strength prior to privatisation, could be
deployed in a much more restricted part of the city.
The general attitude among residents towards privatisation of SWC is positive. Most
people feel that private workers will perform better due to strict surveillance and higher
job insecurity. Consequently, the social legitimacy of SWC by private operators is high.
On the level of the entire city improvements can also be observed. Spatial coverage of
basic collection services has been extended in the wake of privatisation. This is largely
a result of the overall increase in investment in solid waste management in the city.
However, privatisation is only implemented in areas with good accessibility and planned
layouts (partly as a result of the uniform package). Slum areas continue to suffer from
gross under-servicing. Residents in these illegal parts of the city often do not have waste
bins in their area (more than half of the selected respondents mentioned this) and conse-
quently many of them resort to arbitrary dumping practices.
Health of workers
The system of SWC in Hyberabad continues to rely heavily on manual labour.
Sweeping and lifting is usually done manually and this is extremely demanding. The
labour-intensive nature of the work derives at least partially from the strength of
labour interests in (local) politics discouraging the replacement of labour by capital.
Anyway, labourers are in continuous contact with the garbage and, hence, stand a
good chance of being infected or hurt. Although the employers are obliged to provide
protective clothing and safety equipment to their workers, both parties often contra-