The Environmental Education and Public Awareness Campaign has commenced with the initiation of the project in November, 2007 and the program would continue for the entire duration of the project. The first 2 years have required concerted involvement from the PMC’s side to set the education and awareness programs in motion in order to meet their intended outreach goals. In the next 2 years the PMC will perform the role of monitoring, evaluating and improving the programs and guide them to a stage to ensure their continuance even after completion of the project.

The entire education program has been structured in terms of an Environment Education subcomponent which aims to build local level capacity amongst key local stakeholders who are subsequently expected to carry out the Public Awareness subcomponent based on an accepted model arrived at in close collaboration with the social team of the PMC.
 
Intensive in – house meetings were held several times to understand and appreciate the gravity of the challenge of mobilizing 100% citizens to participate in the project as the major stakeholder. The recommendations of the SAPROF Study (Feasibility Study of the project) and the strategies accepted in the project were studied and shared and finally it was resolved that the tasks ahead involved the responsibility of ensuring Behaviour Change in all concerned.

To achieve Behaviour Change, a Behaviour Change Communication strategy was adopted with the following as the major activities:

1.	Advocacy with the Municipal Authorities
2.	Linkage with the concerned and responsible municipal officials
3.	Community Dialogue in the form of Neighbourhood meeting/Mother’s meeting/meeting of the influentials and leaders /slum dwellers on Behaviour Change Communication-to encourage collective  responsibility towards proper waste dealing at home and community level.
4.	Focus Group Discussions with institutions/Chamber of Commerce/ Industries / Bazaar Committee / Ward Committee, NHGs, SHGs, CGOs, NGOs, etc.
5.	Interpersonal Communication (IPC) by way of visiting families to communicate about behaviour in relation to identifying degradable and non-degradable wastes, segregating them properly and storing in designated bins.
6.	Social Mobilization to reach out to larger community with the messages by involving various institutions like schools, colleges, youth clubs and voluntary agencies by organizing rallies, mass meetings etc. to ensure greater visibility of the project objectives and activities.
7.	Preparation of IEC materials for Advocacy & Linkage, Community Dialogue, IPC, Social Mobilisation etc.
8.	Organize Seminars/Workshops/Training Programs in consultation with KMDA and Municipalities

The PMC has successfully completed social mobilisation for over 193,000 families covering 100% of the population of the six municipalities. Details are as follows:

The project has considered the option of absorbing most of the existing rag-pickers into the SWM system to be set-up while at the same time stressing on the improvement of health and safety aspects of their jobs. For rag-pickers who cannot be absorbed into proposed system, provision for alternative livelihood through appropriate Vocational Training would be looked at. The ragpickers would be encouraged to join an Education Program specially designed for them so that they can get into the mainstream education process later on. Following laws of the land, no child rag-picker would be allowed to continue in the waste handling profession.

The Rag pickers Improvement Program has commenced and will continue for a period of 4 years during the entire duration of the project. Initially efforts have been directed towards collecting detailed information on the ragpickers through intense interactions with individual ragpickers and utilising the same for formulating improvement programs for them in close coordination with the various stakeholders. Subsequently the same will be implemented in the six municipalities. The PMC would closely monitor the effectiveness of the implementation of the program and evaluate their performance.

Till date the PMC has organized:

1.	Interaction with ragpickers and the teachers of a ragpickers’ school at Konnagar to form an idea about how to initiate and plan the ragpicker improvement programs and with whose support
2.	Profiling of ragpickers at the Waste Recycling Shops at Champdani to form an idea about how to go about with profiling of ragpickers and also to field test and modify the questionnaires and survey formats developed.
3.	Detailed Interaction and Profiling of ragpickers and establishing a database for all six municipalities. Till date 319 ragpickers have been profiled.
4.	Analyzing the database and submitting a Baseline Information Report on the Ragpickers to KMDA.
5.	Detailed Interactions and Profiling of Solid Waste Vendors at Rishra.
6.	Analyzing the database and submitting a Baseline Information Report on the Solid Waste Vendors to KMDA
7.	Preparing a Plan Outline for Rehabilitation of Ragpickers and circulating to KMDA and the six municipalities - feedback from them awaited for finalization of the plan.
8.	Conducting Academic consultation on Ragpickers’ Rehabilitation at Serampore College.

Based on a series of further stakeholder consultations being planned and the feedback received from the six municipalities, the action plans for ragpicker rehabilitation programs will be finalised and implemented.

The project attaches a lot of stress to the information system component and wants to create a model MIS that can be replicated for other SWM projects in India. The intent is to develop advanced, but feasible management information systems which will enable the Client and implementers to monitor the progress of the project and later the SWM process (collection, transfer, composting, disposal, recycling, etc.) and the facilities being built under it. The MIS has 2 major components:

Project Information Management System (PMIS)
To manage a project of this magnitude, complexity, and duration, it would be essential to have a functional and effective project level management information system (PMIS) to be able to manage data and information on various aspects of project planning, implementation and monitoring/supervision. Therefore, a MIS has been conceptualised comprising of hardware, software and networking components to be able to manage and share data between KMDA, six municipalities, proposed solid waste facilities, and the consultant’s offices. Given the geographical spread of the above mentioned project locations, a centralized web server based system is planned which will not only help in efficient information sharing, but would also be feasible in terms of cost incurred for the MIS. 

GIS based Spatial Information System for Waste Management
With the objective of ensuring proper management of municipal solid waste, and ensure efficient flow of information pertaining to collection, transportation and disposal systems for municipal solid waste management, spatial, distributed information system can play a very important role. Such a system would result in transparent information flow as also ensure the availability of key information to decision makers to enable proper functioning and monitoring of all aspects of the proposed SWM system in the six municipalities. In addition, such a system would not require any sophisticated hardware or software to be installed at the individual client end (basically the same set of hardware and software used for PMIS) to be located at the municipalities and the proposed waste management facilities. Also, to enable easy navigation and use, the system would be built with simple, custom designed interfaces.
 

The key objective of the project is to improve environmental conditions in the six municipal towns, and in doing so, comply with national and state level environmental regulations and JICA environmental guidelines.

Therefore the planning and implementation strategy for the project lays considerable emphasis on accentuating the beneficial environment impacts that may arise from the project while trying to minimize the adverse environmental impacts to the minimum. As all development projects are bound to have some environmental impacts on the long run, strategy for environmental management has been framed keeping in mind ground level realities and on the whole is in accordance to the widely accepted As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) principle. In doing so a proper use has been made of the PMC’s experience on environment management practices and benchmarks for similar facilities operating in other developing and developed countries. 

The environment management component involves the following activities :

Facilitating Environmental Approvals
A comprehensive review and desk analysis of environmental protection measures and management plans prepared for the proposed facilities was undertaken. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report for the project was reviewed and upgraded in accordance with the EIA Notification of Sep 06’. All necessary documents for Environmental Clearance of the project were completed and submitted to the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) of Govt. of West Bengal. A Project presentation was made before the members of the State Environmental Appraisal Committee (SEAC).

The State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA), Government of West Bengal has accorded Environmental Clearance to the Kolkata Solid Waste Management Improvement Project vide their Clearance Letter No. EN/26/T-II-1/044/2009 dated January 04, 2010 as per provisions of the EIA Notification No. S.O. 1533 (E) dt. 14th September 2006 of Ministry of Environment & Forest, Government of India.

The Environmental Clearance Letter can be downloaded from the following link: Environmental Clearance for KSWMIP

Environmentally Sound Design and Review of Alternatives
In an effort to bring environmental management upstream and thereby preventing many of the environmental impacts downstream at later stages of the project, the environment management team has interacted closely with the design and implementation team during design of various project components. Feasible alternatives in terms of project siting, layout plans, engineering design aspects, pollution control equipment, etc. and environmentally sound options based on international best practices, conformances to regulation and standards and agreed upon criteria and specifications have been looked at.

Drawing up and Implementation of EMPs
A strong commitment is being exhibited to make this project an environmentally sound one. As a result, taking from the EMPs prepared under the EIA, the Environmental Team has drawn up structured Environmental Management Action Plans (EMAPs) that would look at each aspect of the project that interacts with key environmental components and try to minimize any adverse impacts while at the same time accentuating the beneficial impacts. A formal EMAP has been drawn up for each mitigation measure. Each of the EMAPs will be documented as a part of the PMIS thereby enabling the project environment management team to regularly monitor their implementation through a formal monitoring programme and take necessary corrective action, if progress is found to be unsatisfactory.

The Capacity Development and training component has commenced immediately after the initiation of the project and will continue for a period of 4 years i.e. the entire duration of the project. The main objective of this activity is to improve the learning process in the domain of municipal solid waste management.

The PMC has identified the target stakeholders who will be involved in the waste management setup, assessed their skills and knowledge and suggested estimated key persons to be trained for various other components related to waste management, viz. collection, transportation, treatment, disposal, recycling, etc. Accordingly, training modules for these stakeholder groups have been structured. In this regard the PMC has already organized the following capacity development programs:

- Visit of the KMDA and Municipal Officials / Representatives to the cities of Pune and Surat in India to observe best practices in solid waste management and also to interact with responsible authorities / officials and other concerned stakeholders. This visit was arranged in the month of February 08’.

- Visit of the key decision makers of the KMDA and Municipalities to Kuala Lumpur and Japan to observe best practices in solid waste management in the Asian context and also to interact with responsible authorities / officials and other concerned stakeholders. This visit was organized in the month of April 08’.

- Visit of the key decision makers of the KMDA to Canada and USA to observe best practices in solid waste management in the American countries and also to interact with responsible authorities / officials and other concerned stakeholders. This visit is was organized in the month of June 08’.

- Visit of the KMDA and PMC Officials to the city of Ahmedabad in India to observe best practices in solid waste management and also to interact with responsible authorities / officials and other concerned stakeholders. This visit was arranged in the month of August 08’.

- Study tour for the entire team of social mobilisers from the six participating municipalities to Bhadreshwar to observe certain waste management practices such as composting and landfilling. This visit was arranged in the month of November 08’.

Each study tour concludes with knowledge sharing workshops / sessions which allows sharing of the knowledge/experience gathered by the tour members with other key stakeholders of this project. In addition to this, the PMC has organized for training meetings with the Municipal Waste Handlers and is in the process of organizing more such programs in the future.