Resource detail

Coimbatore city is spread over an area of 105.6 Km2 and is the second largest city in the State of Tamil Nadu. It had a population of 10.6 lakhs (as per Census 2011). In 2012, the city expanded to 257 Km2 with an approximate increase of 16 lakh population due to the agglomeration of nearby villages within the municipal boundary of the city. In terms of solid waste generation, 885 tons per day (TPD) is generated in the city. Prior to the implementation of the JnNURM project, the waste management scenario in the city involved systematic management of waste from around 55% of the households and 20% from shops. In practice, only 10% of the waste was segregated. Door-to-door collection services covered only 44% of the households. The community storage points were not well maintained and almost 85% of them was unhygienic to use. The waste from the waste storage points were transported to the dump sites located in various parts of the city (i.e., Ondipur, Kavundampalayam, and Vellalore) in open tippers and involed unhealthy practices. The city had a small waste treatment plant which treated around 3% of the total waste and the remaining was dumped in the open. With the advent of the JnNURM solid waste management project in the city, significant increase in the door-to-door collection to 90% with an overall collection efficiency of 95% has taken place. This has resulted in drastic improvement of the transportation efficiency in the system.