Bengaluru: Littering to attract hefty fines

BENGALURU: In order to boost its poor ranking in the Swacha Survekshan survey and improve the overall cleanliness of the city, the BBMP has now announced a slew of measures, which include hefty fines for non-segregation of garbage, illegal dumping of garbage and concrete wastes apart from spitting and urinating at public places.

Fines start from Rs 200 for the first offence and go up to Rs 1,000 for a second offence and Rs 5,000 for third and repeat offences.

For bulk garbage generators and concrete wastes, the fines are much more and for repeat offences. They range from Rs 5,000 to Rs 25,000.

City Mayor Gangambike said BBMP's aim is to achieve 90 per cent door-to-door collection by September and 100 per cent by December. We aim to ensure the waste to landfill is minimised to 13-15% through processing 100 per cent of waste and encouraging decentralised and in-situ processing, improving visual cleanliness with zero tolerance for garbage black spots and zero tolerance for plastic usage, she added.

BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad pointed out that the present population of Bengaluru is 1,30,88,022 with 198 wards, and shared Palike's strategies to achieve their goals.

"Segregated wastes - wet and dry will be collected from households and a new tender has been floated for the same. Steps have been taken to run all the waste processing plants to its optimal capacity. Pourakarmikas and mechanical sweepers will help maintain clean streets and the public can monitor the cleaning details which will be put in public domain," Prasad said.

He said commercial bulk garbage generators (10-100kg per day) have to hand over their wastes to empanelled vendors only. Animal wastes, construction debris and E-waste generators have to mandatorily hand it over to authorized service providers.

The BBMP Commissioner added that officials will carry out regular raids to prevent use of banned plastic. However, there was no clarity as to when all this will come into effect.