While several big cities are drowning into the wasteful remains of development, the small towns Bobbili and Suryapet from our Telugu states have emerged at the 4th and 8th positions among the cleanest cities in India in a survey conducted by Center for Science and Environment, New Delhi based a top research and advocacy organization. Based on municipal waste management segregation of waste at the household level, and its reuse.
In 2008, Bobbili was as dirty as any other Indian city. The problem persisted until 2009, when K Prasad assumed office as the town’s new municipal commissioner and started mobilizing the people. He conducted awareness programs for public to bring awareness about segregating wet and dry waste in every household. The municipality began door-to-door collection of waste and proceeded to segregate and process them but also made optimum use of waste products for producing vermi-compost, biogas and electrification in an 8.5-acre Solid Waste Management (SWM) Park.

Coming to Suryapet, in 2004 it was awarded by the UN-HABITAT for its “good practice” of waste management. The Suryapet municipality, now in the newly formed Telangana state, even got an ISO 14001:2004 certification for establishing environment-friendly systems. The municipality claims to be the first zero waste town of the country. What’s interesting is that the municipality accomplished such a status without incurring any debts.

If the other cities take inspiration from these two small towns then we can soon see a clean and green India.