Shaadi Khanas, eateries fail to use GHMC waste disposal trucks
The corporation needs to be blamed too for not collecting the waste daily, forcing disposal in community garbage bins placed on streets. (Photo: DC/File)
Hyderabad: City hotels, mostly unlicensed ones, and shaadi khanas (marriage halls) generating bulk garbage do not dispose their waste through designated trucks of the GHMC. The corporation needs to be blamed too for not collecting the waste daily, forcing disposal in community garbage bins placed on streets.
The corporation should increase the cess for hoteliers illegally dumping garbage at community garbage bins during late hours, instead of collecting the two per cent Swachh Bharat cess from taxpayers, experts said, referring to a proposal in the Union Budget.
In the recent revision of trade licence fee, the GHMC withdrew garbage collection charges, and waste fee is not collected from traders. Earlier, the GHMC used to charge 25 per cent of trade licence fee as waste collection charges; it was 100 per cent for restaurants. In the revision of rates for 2015, the waste fee has been included into the trade licence.
Mr O.M. Debara, retired government official and social activist, said, “It is an injustice to make the public pay (the proposed Swachh Bharat cess) for someone else’s fault. Firstly, why is the GHMC not imposing penalty on eatery outlets? GHMC does not lift garbage from hotels, hospitals at least 10 days a month, forcing them to litter the roads. The salaries of such sanitation officers should be stopped as penalty.”
A senior official from the GHMC said, “Most unlicensed eateries get away by throwing waste on the roads. The proposal to categorise these vendors into red, amber and blue zones has been pending since 2005. Hotels that do not pay the bulk garbage charge use community bins. This has forced us to include the collection charges into the trade license so that no licensed hotel evades it. On Sunday, the commissioner himself penalised a hotel at Somajiguda 40,000 for throwing garbage on the road.”
On the lackadaisical attitude of the corporation staff, the officials added, “Firstly, the whole system has to be strengthened at the circle level.”
( Source : dc )
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