DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Punjab Cabinet Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond on Monday inaugurated the state's first pilot project of door-to-door collection and segregation plant to enable wet and dry waste to be collected separately from each household in Khanna town.

Sond said the pilot project with an outlay of Rs 4 crore would continue for a year. After the success of this project, it will be started in other areas of Punjab as well, he said.

The Minister said the government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann is striving to make the state garbage-free and to fulfill this goal, the first pilot project of the state has been started from Khanna city. He said wet and dry garbage and solid waste will be collected separately from every household of every ward of Khanna.

He said with the start of this project, garbage will not be dumped at any other point of the city. As a result of this, the garbage will be eliminated from all the wards.

He said all the residential, commercial, and street vendors will be issued a unique identification number which would be linked to an app. A nominal bill for garbage collection will be sent to each user on their mobile phone through a message.

The Minister said the city residents can pay the user charges both online and offline. A complaint cell has also been set up in this regard, the toll-free number of which is 1800-121-5721. Any complaint regarding garbage received on this toll-free number will be processed within 60 minutes.

He said there would be GPS tracking of all the vehicles collecting garbage. The details of all these vehicles will be displayed live on the screen of the established control room.

The Minister said his dream was to make Khanna City clean and beautiful, so this effort is being made for the fulfillment of this goal.

(editor@dailyworld.in)