Patna, Aug. 3: The urban development department has come up with fresh long-term scientific policies in a bid to improve the dismal situation of solid waste management in the state.

State minister of urban development department Prem Kumar today released three books based on these policies. The books include Guidelines for Sitting of Sanitary Landfill, Guidelines for Sitting of Sewage Treatment Plant and Generic Environmental Management Plan.

The release of the books on the subject suggests that the minister accepts that cleanliness remains a major problem in the city and a challenge for the state government.

“Maintaining cleanliness in the cities is a challenge for the state government. With the help of support programme for urban reforms in Bihar, the state government, for the first time is preparing to execute city development plans in the urban local bodies of the state. Sewage treatment plant, landfill and others have been proposed at 139 urban local bodies,” Kumar said.

“Here, the selection of the landfill site remains the most important aspect because it is governed by the factors related to land, air as well as water pollution,” the minister said.

Giving more insight to the proposed plan of action in the state, Shashi Shekhar Sharma, the principal secretary of urban development department said each of the cities has its own landfill site.

“Despite this, the entire state would be divided into eight to 10 regions. Besides, one common landfill site will be given to each of the regions. Under the proposed plans, one regional landfill site is proposed for eight to 10 cities in a region,” the principal secretary said, adding that there would be provision for generating electricity and compost from the garbage.

Satish Agrawal, the senior engineer of support programme for urban reforms, explained that the selection of proposed regional landfill site would be done with the help of satellites. “It will be done according to the environment and civic regulations,” he pointed out.

According to the solid waste management rules 2000, all cities in the country should have a fully functional solid waste management complex at a designated landfill site by 2002.

Nine years passed since then and Patna remains the only city in the state to have identified a landfill site at Bairiya village on Patna-Gaya road. No other city in the state has an approved landfill site for dumping garbage and constructing a solid waste management complex yet.