Government launches app to monitor solid waste management

In a step towards simplifying waste management, the environment ministry launched a web-based application -- Integrated Waste Management System (IWMS) -- here on Monday to help in tracking the 'movement and management' of hazardous and other solid wastes.

Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, launching the website - www.iwms.nic.in - said this would help them monitor total 43,000 industries responsible for producing hazardous waste.

"With this we can track all the hazardous waste and other solid waste. It will also become a single window for authorization and provide state and nation-wise data on waste generation and number of waste generating and processing industrial units," Javadekar said here.

The minister added that the data obtained will help the authorities to identify the problem areas of the waste management and plan accordingly. The portal will generate data on different categories of waste including hazardous, bio-medical, electronic, plastic and municipal waste.

"There are over 43,000 industrial units producing the hazardous waste, like the waste generated while producing nickel. Out of these, 30,000 had already been mapped using this application and other will be mapped soon," the minister said.

The portal will also facilitate the people in obtaining permission for import and export of certain categories of waste, for reuse, recycling, recovery or co-processing and conserve the primary source.

The ministry official stated that it also aims to track the waste producing industry using Geographic Information System (GIS) maps for effective monitoring and, if required, to inspect their waste management or processing mechanism.

"The upgraded version of the IWMS is expected to encompass generation of annual report from the annual return filed by the industries for various types of waste generated in the country. This version would provide customized GIS based information. The GIS maps would be generated and integrated with underlying information to provide an excellent visual outlook to the available data," a ministry statement said.

--IANS

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