MCD plans penalty for litterbugs

In a bid to improve cleanliness in the Capital ahead of next October’s Commonwealth Games, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has decided to implement a host of improved sanitation facilities.

During the MCD budget presented on Wednesday, Municipal Commissioner K S Mehra said the civic body has already sent the Delhi Cleanliness and Sanitation By-laws (2009) to the state government for approval. If notified, the by-laws will enable the civic body to issue on-the-spot challans to offenders and charge higher penalty — between Rs 50 to Rs 500.

The MCD is currently authorised to only levy fines according to the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act (1957) and can charge a maximum of Rs 50 for offences such as dumping garbage in public areas, depositing filth on the street among others, as per the provisions of the Act.

The Corporation is also contemplating civic sense awareness drives and harsher anti-littering measures, and has already initiated the first phase of the door-to-door collection of waste.

The garbage collection drive will be undertaken in all residential and commercial establishments by two different auto-tippers in two colours — green for bio-degradable and blue for non-bio-degradable waste.

The auto-tippers are small in size enabling them to navigate through narrow lanes and by-lanes and are fitted with sirens and a public address system to announce their arrival.

According to Commissioner Mehra, once the existing garbage dumps or dhallaos in areas where the auto-tipper scheme is to be implemented become vacant, they can be utilised for providing public utility services and help generate revenue for the civic body.

The proposal further said, around 100 acres at the landfill site near Ghazipur will be provided for deriving fuel or compost from waste and around 75 per cent of the garbage will be used for this. The remaining 25 per cent will be dumped at the landfill site.

The MCD also plans to install special ‘underground dustbins’ and do away with dhallaos before the Games. The civic body will begin by installing 67 such dustbins as the first phase of the project to ensure “hygienic garbage collection”. It will spend Rs 3.25 crore on each dustbin and the task of installing them has been given to a company from Finland.

Fines if by-laws are implemented
Offence-- existing fine--proposed fine

* Littering--Rs 50--Rs200
* Spitting--Rs 50--Rs 200
* Urinating in Public--Rs 50--Rs 200
* Feeding animals/birds--no fine--Rs 500 in non-designated areas
* Washing utensils/clothes--no fine--Rs 200 in non designated areas

Projects proposed: Old wine in new bottle?
Development projects:
* Town Hall redevelopment
* Novelty cinema complex redevelopment
* Defence Colony land belonging to defunct primary health centre to be redeveloped
* MCD Kashmere Gate Building redevelopment
* A district-cum-commercial centre in Raja Garden
* Development of MCD-owned vacant lands in areas like Ghazipur, Model Town, Raj Niwas and Tis Hazari. MCD is currently working on changing the land-use plan for the above vacant plots.
* Once implemented, the projects will generate revenue over Rs 1,500 crore.

Commonwealth Games projects
* Streetscaping of areas near the Games venues; development of multilevel parking lots near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Friends Colony, ITO, Janakpuri and Kamla Nagar
* Installing G2C kiosks, public telephone booths, vending kiosks, police booths and other public utilities
* Streetscaping and redevelopment of guest houses in Karol Bagh and Paharganj
* Constructing 16 new Railway under-bridges and over-bridges at a cost of Rs 440 crore for better traffic movement
* Improve sanitation and health facilities

Expenditure check
* A new monitoring committee will be formed to check and identify the sources of all dishonoured cheques that the Corporation receives from regional treasuries and citizen service bureaus
* New ‘security printed’ receipts, similar to bank cheques, will be issued to curb forgery
* Bio-metric attendance system, which has helped cut expenditure on overtime payments, to continue.
* Installation of prepaid electricity meters
* Investing available funds in small scale revenue earning projects rather than depositing them in banks
* Payment of salaries through ECS
* Strengthening mechanism for property tax and transfer duty collection
* Upgrading house tax rates according to the unit area method
* Avoiding unnecessary expenditure and cutting establishment expenditures
* Avoiding loans and consequent interest