Solid Waste Management

The Dibrugarh Municipal Board (DMB) is responsible for managing solid waste within the municipal limits while the rest of the Dibrugarh Municipal Planning Area (DMPA) is presently not covered. Major sources generating municipal solid wastes in Dibrugarh are the households, commercial establishments, institutions, markets, street sweeping, and construction/demolition activities. No recorded estimations on total waste generation and its characteristics are available with DMB. Crude estimates from DMB indicate solid waste generation in the town and DMPA present generation is estimated to be 60 and 78 metric tons per day (MTD) respectively and this is Projected to increase to 82 and 112 MTD respectively in 20 years.
The present waste collection frequency is very irregular and inadequate. Wastes are not segregated at source and are a mixture of inert, recyclable and bio-degradable matters. Assam Medical College has the only bio-medical waste treatment facility, with an incinerator of capacity 150 kilograms (kg). DMB provides facility to other health care establishment on chargeable basis.
Three tractor tailors and one truck are involved for collection of wastes which are parked within the DMB office premises as there is no garage and repair facility of these vehicles. The DMB has added a cesspool cleaner of 3000 liter capacity. The present disposal site is located at Maizan, Barsuikiya Gaon. The site 6 km away from the city covers 0.5 ha. There is no leachate collection or protection system installed in the existing disposal site. Due to the potential to pollute the adjacent surface water and groundwater table, the APCB has issued a closure notification to this dumpsite.
The following key issues were identified:

• Need of an extensive public awareness campaign and initiate house-to-house collection and waste segregation for a sample cluster of households;
• Need to improve collection system efficiency;
• The unscientific method for disposal of solid waste at the dumping ground should be stopped and the biodegradable organic fraction should be processed;
• Non-biodegradable fraction and rejects from processing units should be disposed off by sanitary landfill method;

These physical investments would include, apart from installing of a solid waste management system in conformance to the MSWMHR, an extensive capacity building and awareness Program. The capacity building resulting from the subproject implementation, in terms of the institutional setup and exposure to good subproject implementation practices shall provide a strong base towards the implementation of the master plan for the sector.
The urgent improvement needs identified based on situation assessment and consultations include: (i) improvement of collection efficiencies, both primary and secondary; (ii) improvement in the existing system; and, (iii) treatment and disposal of wastes in accordance with MSWMHR.