Solid waste management system in Cuttack caught in a limbo

Cuttack | Tuesday | 5th March, 2019

Summary:

It categorizes garbage generators, their responsibilities towards solid and liquid waste disposal, a list of offences for which fines can be imposed and the various waste generators who will have to pay the user fee.Under the Solid Waste Management Bye Laws, 2017, people will have to pay a fine for throwing trash on the road in front of their houses. For failure to segregate waste at home or shops also, people will have to shell out money.The fines will be imposed on a daily basis, CMC officials said.Additional commissioner Suman Behera said the enforcement of the bye laws was vital to bring about an integrated solid waste management system and reduce the amount of waste being disposed. CUTTACK: The Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) finds itself in a bind over the enforcement of the Solid Waste Management By- Laws, 2017, owing to a delay in the execution of the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Project.The civic body had planned to enforce the bye laws two years ago; they aim at facilitating proper segregation and disposal of municipal waste in the city.The new regulation empowers the civic body to collect a fixed user fee on a monthly basis from every waste generator for the purpose of garbage collection from houses and institutional waste generators. Consequently, the notification inviting the tenders had to be cancelled on November 27, 2018.Municipal commissioner Sarat Nayak said, "As the government is yet to finalize the tender process for the execution of the Municipal Solid Waste Management Project, we have decided to start door-to-door garbage collection on a pilot basis in Ward 9." "But enforcement has not been possible as it was supposed to be done while the Integrated Municipal Solid Waste Management Project, 2016, was executed," Behera said.The project has been on hold as the tender process for its execution could not be completed by the CMC for over two years now..