Just a year after taking over all waste management, recycling and treatment in the majority of Amritsar in the state of Punjab, India, Averda, the international waste management and recycling company, is pleased to announce it has been awarded a new contract for the ancient Walled City centre, a religious heritage complex and busy site for tourists and visitors.
This now brings another 30,000 households and the famed Golden Temple, a holy site of Sikhism, under Averda’s responsibility.
The ancient, narrow streets of the Walled City are typically extremely busy and filled with traders and tourists, unsuitable for the large vehicles used for waste collections elsewhere in Amritsar. Averda will therefore use 41 mini tippers, along with 54 rickshaw trolleys, to collect household municipal waste and ferry them to composting and treatment sites.
Averda has been working closely with Amritsar’s municipal authorities over the last year to transform waste collection and treatment in the city, with the goal of making Amritsar a national benchmark of environmental health and sustainability, in line with the national government’s Clean India Mission.
Key to this drive has been encouraging residents and businesses to segregate their waste before collection, allowing the organic or ‘wet’ waste to be composted rather than landfilled. As a result of Averda’s public outreach and education programme, around a third of waste is now being segregated before disposal, with ambitions to increase this to 50% within the next year.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Shri OP Soni explained: “Municipal waste collection and management is of paramount importance so far as public health is concerned. I urge residents of all wards and owners of commercial establishments to segregate municipal waste properly so that the task of waste management becomes much easier.”
Amritsar Mayor Shri Karamjit Singh said the city authorities are determined to make the holy city an ideal example of waste management in India. AMC Commissioner Shri Malwinder Singh Jaggi, IAS, said: “The public-private partnership is the new mantra to ensure best civic facilities in the city. Door to door collection of municipal waste in collaboration with Averda is a case in point.”
Averda’s Managing Director in India, Amit Bajpai, explained, “Averda has decades of experience in bringing quality, sustainable waste management services to communities around the world, but only started working in India in 2020. The award of this new contract extension is testament to the hard work and progress we have made in Amritsar, and we look forward to extending our services further to the benefit of citizens and visitors.”
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