Civic bodies to bring ragpickers under formal organised system

New Delhi, December 1
In a bid to integrate and offer better working conditions to kabadiwalas and ragpickers in the national Capital, civic body officials are working on a scheme to bring them under a formal organised system.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation along with its East Delhi counterpart is going to start a zero waste management project on a pilot basis in the Dwarka and West Vinod Nagar areas.
"The aim is to integrate and formalize the services of ragpickers. These people work in extremely unhealthy environmental conditions. The need of the hour is to bring them under the formal system of collection, segregation, transportation and disposal of wastes," said SDMC Commissioner Manish Gupta, who is also the acting Commissioner of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC).
Under the zero waste management initiative, the ragpickers will be organised by NGOs and each one of them would be allotted 150 households.
The municipal corporation will provide them support with infrastructure and protective gears like gloves, uniform, bins, rickshaw and identity cards.
Then they would go from house to house with two bins and collect the dry and wet wastes separately for which they will also charge a nominal fee, like Rs 30 a month. — PTI