Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy will flag off the distribution of e-autos at his camp office at Tadepalli near here on Thursday as part of ‘Jagananna Swachha Sankalp’ — the government’s firm commitment to realise ‘Clean Andhra Pradesh’.
The government is taking up the distribution of 516 e-autos in 36 municipalities across the State at a cost ₹21.18 crore. Each e-auto, with a capacity of 500 kg, costs ₹4.10 lakh. Women have been trained to drive these electric three-wheelers.
The government also wants to ensure that it would not burden the small municipalities with O&M expenses. It has proposed to supply e-autos in Grade-II and Below Grade ULBs for segregated waste collection from households in 79 ULBs. The ULBs which cannot meet O&M expenses of diesel/CNG autos from the user charges and have a weak financial position are proposed to deploy e-autos. Tenders were floated and a work order issued for procurement of e-autos along with an annual maintenance contract for five years.
The government has, so far, distributed 120 lakh bins with colour coding (red, blue and green) for segregation of wet, dry and hazardous waste to 40 lakh households in 123 municipalities at a cost of ₹72 crore.
The waste-to-energy projects have already started in Guntur and Visakhapatnam. Another project is to be set up in Rajamahendravaram soon, with a capacity of 400 TPD. The government is establishing 135 garbage transfer stations in 81 municipalities with a cost of ₹156.61 crore. Besides, 71 integrated solid waste management projects, 29 waste-to-compost projects and four bio-methanation projects for managing wet waste are under way, according to a press release.
