Hyderabad: The 10th edition of Confederation of Indian Industry’s 2-day Waste & Resource Management Summit 2019 got underway here at Hyderabad. As part of the Summit, CII is also organising a parallel conference on Alternate Fuel & Raw Materials (AFR).
Addressing at the inaugural session, Ms Harichandana Dasari, IAS, Additional Commissioner, CSR, Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), underlined that ecological and economic progress needs to be balanced, and it calls for concerted efforts by all the stakeholders. The global waste and resource management industry is worth USD 360 billion today, and is set to cross USD 500 billion soon, she said.
India has a startup ecosystem where innovative ideas are aplenty but scaling and sustaining them is not yet common. If the industry and other stakeholders can tap into the potential, India can easily become a global leader in waste and resource management,” Ms Harichandana highlighted.
Mr E V Narsimha Reddy, Vice Chairman & MD, Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC) said that resource efficiency and circular economy are of utmost importance in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Telangana, he said, is a pioneer in contributing to this transformation from a linear economy to a circular economy.
“International strategies and best practices are being studied by the Govt of Telangana. e-waste Policy is already in place, and projects in partnership with the likes of NASSCOM are ongoing, but there is still a long way for us to go. Financial availability for new initiatives is most important, and we are working on it. The Government is in the process of finalizing the release of a strategy paper for waste and resource management, which will encapsulate all the various aspects of waste management and resource efficiency,” he said.
Dr Dieter Mutz, Team Leader, European Union Resource Efficiency Initiative India, said that preprocessing of waste should be accorded the same importance as co-processing, and that there is a lot of scope for waste and resource management in India. “There is a lot of money to be saved in waste and resource management and the use of alternate fuel. We have not yet solved the problem of the conflict between waste as a resource and waste as a nuisance, and this issue offers enough room for improvement in the industry, a potential opportunity to explore,” he said.
Mr C Sekhar Reddy, Chairman, IGBC Hyderabad chapter, highlighted the initiatives taken up by CII in promoting waste management practices in Indian industry.
The inaugural session was also marked by award of CII GreenCo Rating to seven companies, and exchange of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CII and Industrial Waste Management Association (IWMA).