The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has engaged National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) to conduct a series of Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban) solid waste management exposure workshops in the country. NIUA has further contracted ICLEI South Asia, Infrastructure Development Corporation (Karnataka) and India PPP Capacity Building Trust to conduct these training in Pimpri-Chinchwad (Maharashtra), Warrangal and Hyderabad (Telengana). The workshops will seek to strengthen institutional capacities at ULBs towards collection, treatment, disposal and efficient management of various types and categories of wastes, promote 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) initiatives and dissemination of good practices, and facilitate integrated efforts towards achieving improvement in general health of city environment etc.

The first training workshop was organised in Pimrpi-Chinchwad from 26-28th September, 2018. Around 50 officials comprising of chief executive officers, health officers and engineers working in solid waste management from 21 cities participated in the training workshop. The workshop was inaugurated by the Mayor of Pimpri-Chinch wad City, Mr. Rahul Gulab Jadhav who graciously lit the inaugural lamp along with Mr. Dilip Gawade, PCMC Joint Commissioner, Mr. Manoj Lonkar, Executive Officer (Health) and Mr. Sagar Gawali, Councilor. Mr. Jadhav in his inaugural speech focused on the positive and effective involvement of various departments to create a balance between development needs of the rising population of the city. Stressing upon the importance of SWM, he urged the audience to actively participate in the workshop as it will help increase their knowledge and provide them options for betterment of their processes for SWM.

ICLEI- South Asia Team convened the workshop, orienting the audience to Swachh Bharat Mission and its linkages to National Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM) and National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) focusing on the convergence paths between the three. There was a brief session delivered for the general understanding of the Solid Waste Management Rules 2016 and Rules for Special Waste Management. Sessions on different waste processing technologies with focus on decentralized waste management, integration of informal sector, fecal sludge management was conducted. An elaborated session on upcoming Swachh Survekshan 2019 was conducted to familiarize the participants with the key highlights. Experts from Ecosan Foundation, SWaCH and CRISIL shared their experiences on fecal sludge management, informal sector integration in waste management and Swachh Sarvekshan with participants. Further, sessions focused on financial aspects of contacting and tendering and monitoring system as they form an integral part of solid waste management system

Field visits to understand good practices like segregated collection of waste through informal sector at Pune, biomining at Saswad, centralized processing facility at Moshi and decentralized waste management by Resident Welfare Association at Roseland Society was organised to give the participants an idea of the various initiatives.

The training workshop at Pimpri-Chinchwad saw a positive engagement between the participants, discussing and engaging in dialogues about the different ground realities they face in their respective cities. The participants were provided with certificates at the end of the training workshop. The second training workshop in Pimpri-Chinchwad will be organised from 3rd to 5th October, 2018.

Similarly, a second workshop was also held at the same venue from the 3rd to 5th of October, 2018.

 A three-day workshop was also conducted in Jaipur from the 28th to 30th of November, 2018. About 30 officials comprising of executive officers, commissioner, assistant engineer, junior engineer, revenue officer and sanitary inspectors working on solid waste management from 20 cities participated in the training workshop. The workshop was inaugurated by Mr. Purushottam Biyani, (Retd) IAS, Former Director of Directorate of Local Bodies.
   
The workshop consisted of presentations, group discussions, exercises, and site visits. A field visit was organised for participants to give them an idea of solid waste management good practices.