Hopes on penalties to deter littering
Hyderabad: The GHMC has imposed penalties about Rs 9 lakh since the last two weeks on violators of rules pertaining to sanitation in the Greater Hyderabad. The officials so far booked 452 cases in the last two weeks and collected Rs 8,79,500 from all the 30 circles of GHMC limits.
They imposed a maximum number of fines in the Chandanagar circle, which collected Rs 3,39,400 from 85 offenders. Serilingampally came next to Chandanagar, accounting for Rs 1.38 lakh, from 26 offences.
Dr Vijay Kumar, the Chief Medical Officer of Health, GHMC, said that the sanitary department staff had been asked to impose penalties for offences like open dumping of garbage, littering, open urination, dumping of construction and demolition waste, and usage of plastic bags. He said that men were deployed at various places where there was continuous dumping of wastes and misutilisation of water, to advise caution people against violating regulations pertaining to sanitation and wastage of water.
"Awareness programmes and imposing fines had been in vogue for a long time. But we have started imposing penalties vigorously only recently," added the CMOH.
The sanitation staff are given weekly targets each to inspect dumping of construction and demolition waste, burning of garbage, open urination, and littering of nalas and public spaces.
Penalties to be imposed for various offences range from Rs 100 to Rs 1000 for littering on roads and open spaces, and up to Rs 10,000 for dumping of debris and garbage in drains and also for dumping construction and demolished wastes in open places.
Despite, the Municipal Corporation deciding to crack the whip against violators in a bid to keep the city clean, denizens seem to be not much bothered about the civic body's efforts or warnings. Though GHMC and many NGOs are carrying out awareness programmes, people have so far been paying little attention to their basic duties as citizens.
"The idea is not to penalise the public, but to inculcate and bring about civic sense among thyem and make the city look neat and clean," said Dr Vijay Kumar, CMOH, GHMC.