Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has launched a door-to-door garbage collection programme in Patna on Monday. Under this new version of garbage collection programme, the residents in Patna will have to hand over their household waste directly to the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC). The process is made mandatory for all, and those who fail to follow the directions will be treated as defaulters and subjected to a penalty.
According to a senior Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials, the penalty system will be enforced later only after the programme becomes enough popular. As of now, the civic body is focusing on spreading the word about door-to-door garbage collection among the residents.
“In the earlier version of door-to-door garbage collection implemented by Patna-based Nishka Security and Intelligence Services and Delhi-based People’s Association for Total Help and Youth Applause, the agency people had to visit people’s doorstep to collect garbage,” deputy municipal commissioner Vishal Anand said.
“But in this new version, we have also made residents accountable. The programme is resuming after a gap of a few months. Now, people have to come out of their houses and submit their trash to the PMC vehicle. The Centre’s solid waste management rules, 2016, say residents must hand over household waste to the corporation’s door-to-door garbage collectors and if they fail to do so in any way they are supposed to pay penalty,” Vishal Anand added.
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“Right now we don’t want to take any coercive action against residents who do not submit their household waste, but the penalty system will be introduced after a while, once we are assured we have created awareness about the programme. We will charge a penalty of up to Rs 5,000 from defaulters,” Vishal said.
“We have divided each ward into five sectors and engaged a supervisor in each sector to look after 500-1,000 houses. The supervisors have been provided with an auto tipper and a tricycle. They are supposed to move along with the auto tippers and tricycles in which garbage is collected. Four-five days into their work they will get a rough idea which houses are not submitting garbage. They will collect a list of defaulters and later action will be taken against them,” said Vishal on being asked about the way to identify defaulters.
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“The monitoring team will find out if there are any defaulters among the households and other stake-holders like hoteliers, restaurateurs, coaching people and shopkeepers among others and serve on-the-spot challans,” Vishal said. The PMC will form a monitoring team that will roam across wards to ensure the collection is executed properly.
