Importance-Performance Analysis to assess community role in solid waste management in the Hooghly District, West Bengal

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a major concern in developing cities. Small cities and peripheral towns lack adequate hard infrastructural facilities to systematically manage solid wastes from generation to disposal. It can be argued that through soft intervention measures such as local community's awareness, participation, involvement and engagement in tackling solid wastes, the infrastructural challenges of small towns can be met to a great extent. In this article, the three sub-divisional towns of the Hooghly District, West Bengal: Hooghly-Chinsurah, Chandannagar and Serampore, have been selected to assess community perception and performance in managing solid wastes through Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). The Importance and Performance (IP) quantitative scores and the "G"-value (i.e., the gap between I and P) have been enumerated for different social groups classified across age, income, education and gender. Furthermore, the concordance levels (CL) have been calculated by quantifying the ratio between mean performance score (MPS) and mean importance score (MIS) against each SWM component specifically identified for the study area. Through the research findings, it can be mentioned that the IPA assessment tool is significant in terms of designing innovative and low-cost action strategies for municipalities, complementing (inadequate) hard infrastructures for developing cities. This study finally argues that this methodology can be applied across scales through which local ULBs can design efficient and effective SWM mechanisms reliant upon capacitating local communities.