Is PMC's SWaCH Model Sustainable?

by

Rajendra Kumar Kale

The author is a former DRDS scientist. He leads a citizens' group and works with PMC to resolve civic issues of their PIN area, Pune-16. This article is based on his 6-month long interaction with SWaCH coordinators.

The Stated Model vs. the Actual Practice

SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling) is presented as a progressive model of urban waste governance. Its stated vision is to empower waste-pickers by integrating them into a cooperative, giving them dignity, voice, and stable livelihoods. With over 3,900 members, it appears at first glance to be a landmark example of inclusive urban governance.

However, the actual practice departs significantly from cooperative principles. While registered as a cooperative, SWaCH’s governance and operations document shows that the entire 5-year (2024-29) contract cost of Rs. 33.75 Cr—annual average of Rs 6.75 Cr—is diverted exclusively to staff salaries and operational expenses, not to the cooperative members themselves. 

Members must fend for their income by collecting household fees directly, often with resistance or non-payment and relying on the fluctuating, informal sale of recyclables recovered from the waste. This reveals that PMC is effectively outsourcing waste collection to an intermediary staff layer, not empowering cooperative members directly. 

The Illusion of Empowerment

PMC claims credit for transforming “illiterate rag-pickers” into empowered cooperative members. Yet, in reality, the autonomy of the cooperative is hollow. Decision-making power is concentrated in the staff and governing body (on which a PMC officer sits), not with the members’ general body. Financial flows bypass the members entirely.

The cooperative’s accounting system records staff salaries, but keeps no track of members’ earnings from household fees or recyclables. Moreover, a membership fees of Rs 300 per month are extracted from members, effectively taxing them to sustain the very system that marginalizes them. This creates a paradox: the cooperative is supposed to serve its members, but its structure instead serves its own staff and PMC’s cost-saving goals.

The Economics of Exploitation 

According to SWaCH’s own website, the model saves PMC Rs 113 crore annually compared to conventional waste management contracts. This massive saving rests on the unpaid or underpaid labor of members. The economic injustice becomes immediately clear: 

Staff appointed by the governing body receive assured monthly salaries and expenses, akin to formal employees. Member-waste-pickers have no assured income, no employment benefits, and no collective bargaining power. Members' income depends entirely on two unstable sources: household fee collection (which households often resist or underpay) and recyclable sales (subject to market volatility). 

This dualism creates a two-class system within the cooperative—a secure staff class and an insecure member class—reversing the purpose of cooperative organization.

The Legal and Governance Contradictions

A cooperative, by definition, is owned and controlled by its members, with surpluses distributed equitably. SWaCH’s contract with PMC undermines these principles:

By directing all contract funds to staff, it violates the principle of member-benefit enshrined in cooperative law. The presence of a PMC officer on the governing body compromises autonomy, turning SWaCH into a quasi-municipal entity rather than an independent cooperative.

The arrangement constitutes a form of informal employment for staff. They enjoy job-like security without formal contracts, labor protections, or accountability. For example, as you note, half the staff could be terminated, automatically doubling the remaining staff’s income—a practice unthinkable in regulated employment, yet possible in this hybrid setup.

The Ethical Dimension

Ethically, the model raises troubling questions: Is it justifiable for PMC to save Rs 113 crore annually while the poorest workers—who bear the heaviest physical burden—remain precarious? Does the model exploit the illiteracy and vulnerability of waste-pickers by imposing fees on them while denying them structured earnings? Is SWaCH truly a cooperative, or has it been co-opted into an outsourcing agency for PMC, with cooperative language masking exploitation? 

By turning the cooperative principle upside down, PMC effectively shifts the risk of waste collection (household resistance, fluctuating recyclable prices, occupational hazards) onto members, while ensuring fixed, low-cost service delivery for itself.

Sustainability: Economic, Social, and Legal

The question of sustainability must be assessed across three dimensions, viz. economic, social and legal sustainability. Waste-pickers’ dependence on recyclables and voluntary household payments makes their income unstable. This undermines long-term retention and livelihood security. By reproducing hierarchies (staff vs. members) the model breeds discontent and erodes solidarity. Socially, the cooperative spirit is replaced by quasi-feudal control. The contract design is incompatible with cooperative law and labor law principles. Eventually, it risks legal challenges or member backlash.

What Would a Sustainable Model Look Like?

A truly sustainable cooperative model would require direct flow of contract funds (at least a fair portion) to cooperative members, not just staff. Accounting and transparency of member incomes, with collective bargaining for fair wages, is essential. Members cannot be treated as informal laborers. Shared governance requires that the general body of members, not external staff, has the decisive control. Only then could PMC legitimately claim to empower waste-pickers and create a replicable model for other cities.

Conclusion

SWaCH is celebrated as an innovative, inclusive model, but its internal contradictions reveal a structure that is exploitative rather than empowering. It saves PMC money, but at the cost of member dignity, cooperative autonomy, and economic justice. Unless restructured to align with cooperative principles and labor protections, the model is neither ethical nor sustainable. 

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Under the terms of contract PMC requires of SWaCH to pay 100% of the contract cost to its staff: As the staff salary (95%) and staff's operational costs (5%). Thus, the staff appointed by SWaCH receives an assured monthly salary plus expenses, like in any organized sector. On the other hand, the member-waste-collectors' own earnings must come solely from the sale of recyclables from the waste collected individually all by themselves under the supervision of the staff appointed by the governing body. The SWaCH accounting team maintains no record of the receipts of the members, who, as the general body, presumed end-beneficiaries of the contract. Moreover, the staff appointed by the governing body collects a monthly 'membership fee' of Rs 300 from each member. As per SWaCH website, this model saves PMC Rs 113 Cr annually. The inherent injustice and exploitative nature of the contract is glaring. 

PMC claims to have empowered the poor, illiterate former rag-pickers by organizing them into a Cooperative Society. In practice, the contract stipulating 100% transfer of contract cost to the Society's employees completely takes away the autonomy of the Cooperative, leaving the members to fend for themselves by personally collecing fee from households with no accountability assumed either by the Staff appointed by the governing body, or by PMC. 

Effectively, PMC has not contracted the services of SWaCH Cooperative, but those of the staff appointed by governing body of SWaCH with a PMC officer on it, for an assured, montly remuneration including expenses for the 5-year period. This is an informal employment, with no employment rules. For instance, half of the staff can be fired to automatically double the income of employee.

Clearly, this model is legally and ethically unsustainable. It exploits the illiterate poor members by turning the Cooperative principle up-side-down. 


Note: We present this inquiry as an open and respectful communication, especially with the director of the SWaCH Cooperative, whose team has engaged with us in three open and good-faith meetings, initiated with the consent of the PMC. Our intention is not confrontation, but collective reflection — and, ideally, structural reform.

Pune struggles with heaps of garbage in public view. As concerned local citizens, we grapple with the persistent problem of household garbage being dumped on the footpaths near Homi Bhabha Hospital, Model Colony, Pune–411016.

On the suggestion of the local ward office of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), we initiated a dialogue with the team entrusted with door-to-door waste collection in our area, to understand the bottlenecks and explore collaboration in keeping our footpaths clean. This study emerged from those interactions, and offers a critical review of the operational model adopted by PMC for waste collection.

The PMC spends approximately 0.04% of its ₹10,000–₹15,000 crore annual budget on the task of (1) Collecting waste door-to-door from 9.6 lakh households, (2) Sorting, bagging, and transporting the waste in handcarts to feeder points, and (3) Loading the bags into PMC trucks when they arrive at those points.

The first question we raise is: Is this a reasonable budgetary allocation by a municipal body whose core mandate includes solid waste management?

Importantly, this sum is not paid to the waste-pickers who physically perform the work. Instead, nearly 95% is used to pay salaries of a hired team of 167 staff (managing coordination, data entry, finance, administration, and outreach), and 5% for related costs. Meanwhile, the waste-pickers derive their income from two unregulated sources:

Together, these income streams add up to ₹120–130 crore per year — a substantial sum that flows entirely through the informal economy, with no institutional oversight, no wage protection, and no transparency.

To lend this system a legal appearance, the illiterate Dalit waste-pickers are organized into a registered cooperative society called SWaCH, whose governing body comprises 14 waste-picker members, one representative from PMC, and one from the trade union KKPKP. The funds released by PMC are officially transferred to the cooperative, which then disburses them to the hired team as salaries and operating costs — but not to the workers actually collecting the waste.

This leads to our second key question: Is this an equitable, transparent, and ethically defensible model for delivering a basic civic service like door-to-door waste collection?

The three activities in focus are labor-intensive, daily operations that form the visible and citizen-facing backbone of the SWM chain. They are not capital-heavy, but they are operationally critical. Budgetary allocation of 0.04% of the PMC budget, ≈ ₹5–6 crore/year, is shockingly low for a city of Pune’s scale. Especially because these activities directly affect public hygiene, footpath usability, and urban aesthetics.

The entire system depends on informal labor, with no wage guarantees. The PMC’s own SWM budget is over ₹500 crore, yet this front-end segment receives a fraction of a percent.

Even if we assume ₹100 crore/year is collected informally via user fees, PMC’s formal contribution to these front-end activities is less than 5% of the total economic value of the service. In contrast, cities like Indore and Mysuru allocate 1–2% of their total budget to decentralized waste collection and segregation. Therefore, 0.04% is not a reasonable allocation.  It reflects a systemic undervaluation of the most essential and visible part of the waste management chain — and effectively outsources the cost and risk to the poorest workers and the informal economy.

SWaCH is not the problem — the model of institutional outsourcing without accountability is. Waste-pickers have no formal wages; they are not paid by PMC. They rely on informal user fees and recyclables. There is no oversight of ₹100+ crore/year. The user fee economy is completely unregulated, with no receipts, audits, or grievance redressal. There is only a token governance. The cooperative is technically worker-owned, but real control lies with salaried staff and PMC-appointed representatives. There is an ethical bypass. By routing funds through a cooperative, PMC avoids labor law obligations, wage protections, and social security. 

There is no transparency in financial flows and apparently in decision-making. Equity is deeply compromised — the model externalizes cost and risk onto Dalit women workers. The entire operation is ethically indefensible — it masks informal exploitation under the guise of empowerment.

In a just model, the waste-pickers whould be paid a minimum monthly wage by PMC, with PF and ESI benefits. The ₹90/month fee should be brought under PMC billing, with digital receipts and opt-out mechanisms. The governance should be made transparent by ensuring functional literacy, training, and real voting power for waste-picker board members. At least 1% of the PMC’s budget should be allocated to front-end SWM activities, with a focus on labor dignity.