How is Kerala handling its waste problem?, Pg10

• Kerala launched the ‘Vruthy’ campaign in 2024 to address hygiene and waste management by promoting personal and public cleanliness.

• The campaign involves all segments of society, from school children to local bodies and celebrities.

• It aims to correct the disconnect between personal hygiene and public cleanliness.

• Kerala’s approach emphasizes decentralized waste management, unlike the centralized Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) model.

• Why the campaign? The rise in consumption, especially post-COVID, and a decline in backyard composting and recycling, led to the waste issue reaching households and streets.

• Vruthy campaign’s uniqueness: It is community-driven, unlike SBM’s top-down framework. It emerged from local governance (LSG) and not Union ministries.

• Kerala Solid Waste Management Project (KSWMP) and Suchitwa Mission support municipal efforts, enabling data mapping, infrastructure improvement, and capacity building.

• Kerala promotes innovations like ‘Haritha Karma Sena’ (green task forces) and incentivizes decentralized composting, biogas, and dry waste collection by volunteers and self-help groups.

• A senior bureaucrat emphasized that waste management should be a UPSC question because it lies at the heart of sustainable governance.

• Decentralized Waste Management: Treating waste at or near its source (home, locality) through segregation, composting, and local processing—reducing transport and central infrastructure load.

• Centralized Waste Management: Collecting all waste in one place for processing, which is often inefficient and leads to unsorted dumping or incineration.

• Kerala’s approach is a model for inclusive governance, emphasizing community participation, localized interventions, and cultural transformation.

• A shift from citizen-as-consumer to citizen-as-co-producer of cleanliness is key to long-term behavioural change and success.

Mains Mock Question:

“Critically examine the role of decentralized governance in effective urban waste management, with reference to Kerala’s ‘Vruthy’ campaign.”