Public Private Partnership for Solid Waste Management: A Case Study of Varanasi City

Public private partnership (PPP) has today become one of the dominating discourses circulating since the beginning of the twenty-first century. PPP is a sort of collaboration and contractual cooperation between public- and private-sector agencies for providing goods and services which were hitherto provided by public sector. It is built on the premises of sharing of resources, responsibilities, risks and rewards. Today, solid waste particularly municipal solid waste has been rising as a major issue and environmental challenges as well in the developed and developing world as volume and pattern of solid waste in society has been changing dramatically with changes in standard of living, industrialisation, urbanisation and population growth. Like many other Indian cities, Varanasi has a massive garbage problem because of rural-to-urban migration and migration from other neighbouring districts and states particularly from Bihar, rapid economic growth, overcrowding, poor urban planning, aging infrastructure, rampant corruption and dysfunctional Varanasi Municipal Corporation (VMC). In the light of above context, the proposed study attempts to examine whether PPP has been able to deliver better than VMC or not in this city.