GHMC begins distributing litter bins to hawkers

Charminar: As part of 'Saaf Hyderabad – Shaandaar Hyderabad' (SHSH), the GHMC (Charminar Zone) with the assistance of NGO, Save Foundation started distributing litter bins to hawkers and street vendors to ensure that wastage is collected and directly passed on to garbage collection vehicles.

This initiative came into force following series of meetings and awareness programmes with Town Vending Committees and Hawker Associations in the beginning of this month by the GHMC officials. Higher officials including GHMC Zonal Commissioner, B Srinivas Reddy along with other officials from the Department and police organised meetings in this endeavour before distributing litter bins.

Representatives of Vendor Associations, Town Vending Committee were asked to follow stricter norms to ensure that the streets remain litter free. Besides asking them to remain in the 'demarcation zones', as part of this, vendors were asked to ensure that the litter was collected near their point of business either by attaching the garbage can to the pushcart or installing one near their point of sale.

The GHMC has decided to take up tougher steps to ensure that the penalties deter littering. "The leftovers were found to be lying next day morning and the GHMC workers had tough time clearing it. Now by acting, we will be ensuring that wastage is easily lifted by the GHMC vehicles from the vendors," informed an official.

It was also decided to enforce 'litter free zones' under various Circles and to levy penalties on unheeding hawkers. On Wednesday, the GHMC distributed 50 litter bins to hawkers and street vendors in Chandrayangutta Circle. Zonal Commissioner, Srinivas Reddy asked the hawkers and vendors to ensure that garbage waste was collected in the bins supplied by GHMC and handover them to garbage collection vehicles so that they dispose of easily. Deputy Commissioner, P Mohan Reddy, Corporators - Mirza Mustafa Baig (Riyasath Nagar), Md Ali Shareef (Lalitha Bagh), Abdul Wahab (Chandrayangutta) - N Venu Gopal Deputy Project Officer (Urban Community Development).

Save Foundation, CEO, M Krishna, National Hawker Federation representatives, Shaji Azeem, Shaik Abdul Azam and others took active part in the distribution programme.

It may be mentioned here that as a pilot project, the GHMC (Rajendranagar) in the month of February had started fixing the bins to the carts at Aramghar X road. GHMC spent around Rs 400 for each bucket which was given free of cost to the vendors then.