With only seven months left for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to bring the entire city under its house-to-house garbage collection project, the civic body has reached just over the halfway mark with its ambitious project aimed at making the city clean.
To expedite the project, the civic body has so far sent notices to 11.13 lakh households and 10.60 non-residential structures to ensure proper house-to-house garbage collection. “These notices have been sent just to sensitise people about the importance of segregation of dry and wet waste. Initially, they will be urged to follow the procedure, but if they do not oblige we will have to fine them as per cleanliness rules,” said a civic official from the solid waste management department (SWD).
However, there are complaints from residents that the civic body lacks the infrastructure to implement the project. Kandivali resident Hemant Mantri said, “We tried to segregate the dry and wet waste, but later found that the BMC was dumping it in the same vehicle. What’s the use of our efforts if the BMC doesn’t have different vehicles for waste?”
The civic body has till now managed house-to-house waste collection from only 57 per cent households across the city. “We have prepared a wardwise micro plan for the door-to-door garbage collection scheme, which will make it compulsory for residents to segregate the wet and dry waste,” said Prakash Patil, deputy municipal commissioner, SWD. According to civic officials, the house-to-house services have started in 18.42 lakh households (58 per cent) out of total 31.98 lakh households or families in the city. In case of non-residential or commercial category, the services have been offered to 1.52 lakh (48 per cent) out of 3.14 lakh structures. The average comes to around 57 per cent, still way behind BMC’s plans to ensure house-to-house collection throughout the city by March next year.