Private Sector Participation in Municipal Solid Waste Management in Indian Cities and its Implications

Abstract

The most visible outcome of the increasing pace of urbanisation, along with the rise in the spate of consumerism in the liberalised economic setup, has been the sharp increase in municipal solid waste generation across the urban centres in the developing countries. As the challenge of providing this service becomes more and more pressing, municipalities are turning to the private sector to fill the gap and become the prime service providers. Privatisation of solid waste management services has thus emerged as „the‟ alternative and, as such, several municipalities have taken hasty steps to introduce private sector participation in solid waste management services, treating it as a panacea for the municipal solid waste management woes of the cities. The logic of private sector participation in municipal solid waste management services hinges on the assertion of it performing more efficiently on all fronts. While there is a flurry of rhetoric and excitement around private participation in municipal solid waste management services across Indian cities, there is an acute lack of empirical evidence and research (MoUD, 2010, Anderson, 2011) assessing the impacts of private sector participation in municipal solid waste management. Moreover, none of these studies, to the best knowledge of the researcher, have been conducted explicitly and in detail in conjunction with the principles of sustainability of municipal solid waste management systems.