KOLHAPUR: The Kolhapur Municipal Corporation KMC ) will penalise its sanitation workers if they fail to collect the garbage on a regular basis."The fine , up to Rs 1,000, will be imposed on the lethargic sanitation workers. Also, the sanitation inspectors have been asked to strictly monitor the daily schedule of the workers. We have adequate staff in most of the wards for daily collection of the waste and dumping it in the garbage bins," said Vijay Patil, chief sanitation officer.The decision was taken in the backdrop of corporators complaining that heaps of garbage are lying unattended in their respective wards."Even though there are adequate number of sanitation workers in their respective wards, the garbage collection is left unattended leading to inconvenience to the locals," the corporators had said.Also, the corporators had claimed that many times the sanitation worker did not turn up for door-to-door collection of waste which forces the locals to dump the waste in the open.Patil said that he will himself monitor the regular collection of the waste.There are over 300 sanitation workers with the KMC deployed for solid waste management.The workers are divided in two teams. The first team collects the waste by visiting every household and second team transports the waste to the dumping site.The detailed schedule of the sanitation workers will be handed to the local corporators. Also, the mukadams (leader) of the groups of the sanitation workers will also be held responsible if the garbage collection witnesses any irregularity.It is learnt that the door-to-door collection of waste has stopped at some places since the ghantagadis (garbage cart) have suffered damages and have been sent for repair works."We are also going to procure new ghantagadis and mini vans to ensure rapid collection of the waste. We have scheduled the task of collection of the waste such that the sanitation worker can visit each household at least once in two days. If the delay to collect the waste is more than two days the sanitation workers are to be held responsible," added Patil.

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