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With urbanization, increasing population and rapid economic growth, there is a corresponding increase in municipal solid waste generation in India. Policy makers and administrators have given very less attention to solid waste management (SWM) in India. Policy measures that promote waste segregation, waste minimization, reuse at source and recycling does not exist in India. Solid waste management rules 2016 apply to all aspects of SWM as a regulatory instrument. Swachh Bharat Mission was initiated in 2014. Despite these measures, there is very low compliance. Economic or market-based instruments are more effective in securing compliance as they involve public participation.
There has been a significant increase in Municipal Solid waste (MSW) generation in Delhi and households contribute majorly to it. As several policy instruments are practiced in different countries, it is important to scale down the possible policy instruments which can be applied at household level in context of Delhi. Through literature review and stakeholders’ analysis, it has been deduced that economic instruments like user charges and unit pricing scheme can be applied at household level. Further, public compliance is essential for effectiveness of environmental policies. Therefore, households’ perceptions regarding choice of these policy instruments were examined through primary survey in Delhi by using contingent valuation method. Descriptive statistics and Double Hurdle model were applied to report the results. On an average, households are willing to pay INR 87.95 per month for improvement in SWM through either of the policy instruments. It was observed that 69% of the respondents are willing to pay because they think that these instruments will be helpful in reducing waste. Factors like income, age of household head, number of members, number of children in the household and respondents’ perceptions regarding current SWM system are significant in explaining the participation decision of a household in contingent market. Demographic characteristics of household and waste disposal method used are significant in explaining household’s payment decision. Hence, it can be concluded that these policy instruments can be applied to reduce household solid waste generated in Delhi.
Keywords: waste, solid waste management (SWM), policy instrument, household, Delhi, perceptions.
