Consortium meeting in May 2023
In May 2023, all project Protoprint partners came together in Pune for the annual consortium meet. Interactions on project steering took place among partners from KP, SWaCH, SWaCH Plus, SSI, and Adelphi. The meeting spanned three days. On the first day, a waste trail was organized for the partners to gain insight into the ground-level work of SWaCH, SWaCH Plus, and KP. They engaged with the waste pickers involved in door-to-door collection of municipal solid waste. Visits were arranged to wet waste recycling units, including biogas facilities and composting plants operated by waste pickers. Additionally, the partners spent time at the waste picker-owned scrap shop, where all sorted recyclable dry waste is stored.
The Project Team at the Biogas plant
The Project Team during the waste trail
On the second day, the partners visited Protoprint unit 1, Urali Devachi. The project team did a soft launch of the Protoprint unit 1. The team looked at the operational mechanism of the Protoprint unit and engaged in discussions regarding the challenges and roadblocks that are faced in its operations. The team provided inputs on the unit’s design and overall process. Additionally, there were discussions on enhancing the project’s visibility, during which partners shared methods to achieve this goal.
Team discussions during the consortium meet
On the last day, the project team was engaged in meetings. Intense discussions took place regarding the status of the project, with each partner sharing work updates, milestones, and responsibilities. The existing challenges with respect to timelines, reject material from unit 1, MPCB clearance and forwards linkages were discussed, and the team collectively devised constructive solutions to overcome these obstacles. Suggestions were provided by the team regarding timeline adjustments, changes in action plans, and inputs on conflict resolution. The three-day consortium meeting proved to be highly fruitful, and the partners eagerly anticipated the successful full-capacity operationalization of the units.