516 e-autos flagged-off in Andhra for waste collection

With a view to make the State clean, the Andhra Pradesh Government has launched several initiatives in this direction. Under this, Jagan Mohan Reddy, the Chief Minister flagged off 516 e-autos under the Clean Andhra Pradesh programme from Vijayawada on Thursday.

These three-wheelers which are worth Rs.22.18 crores, will be used in 36 municipalities for collecting garbage in an eco-friendly manner in pursuit of the Government policy of making all the cities in AP bin-free, litter-free and garbage-free.

According to officials, the introduction and distribution of e-autos under the first phase of the plan, will help small municipalities to reduce their expenditure and ease their financial burden.

To rope in more women in this cleanliness drive, about 100 of them will be given the opportunity to drive these e-autos.

Apart from this, 120 lakh waste baskets in blue, green and red colours have also been given to 40 lakh families residing in 123 municipalities. This will enable proper collection of wet, dry and hazardous waste.

To process the waste the Government has set up 71 integrated solid waste management projects, 29 waste to compost and four bio-mixing projects for wet waste management. Also, more than 200 sewage treatment plants have been set up at a cost of Rs.1,445 crore in 66 small municipalities which have less than one lakh population. A large number of such municipalities also have plants to treat faecal sludge.

While waste-to-energy projects have already started working in Visakhapatnam and Guntur, one more will be set up soon.