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A garbage dump in Balangir. Telegraph picture |
Berhampur, July 27: Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BMC) will charge user fees for solid waste management (SWM) from high-rise apartments and big hotels that organise weddings and other social celebrations.
“There are 25 apartments and 12 big hotels in Berhampur. On an average, they generate about 100MT (metric tonnes) of garbage every month. The corporation has decided in its council meeting to impose user fees from apartments and big hotels. It will charge Rs 500 per three metric tonnes of garbage generated by them,” said Subhakanta Das, health officer, BMC.
“We have already intimated the owners of these apartments and the big hotels about the fees and also asked them to provide at least 1,000 square feet area on their premises for the solid waste,” he said.
The user fees would help the authorities to streamline the process of garbage collection. The city generates about 150MT of garbage a day. The corporation has 759 sweepers and drain cleaners, including 371 regular and 388 casual workers.
Considering the national average, which states that two sweepers are required to clean and maintain half a kilometre of road and drain, the civic body requires a total of 1,800 sweepers.
“However, the corporation is now managing the task with only 759 of them. “But we are in the process of privatising sanitation in more and more wards to have lessen our burden,” said Das.Of the total 37 wards in the city, sanitation in 14 wards has been privatised, and the corporation plans to privatise another three wards.
“A tender has been floated and shortly we would privatise another three wards,” Das said. Uma Panigrahi, president of the Berhampur Builders’ Association said: “We have no problem about user fees being charged to keep the city clean and garbage free.”
In a related development, residents of VIP Colony situated in front of the Tehsildar Office, Berhampur, have complained that the solid waste of Sriganesh Towers nearby are being dumped in a disputed private land at road side which is creating pollution.
Stink woes
Three months after two private firms were engaged to take up the sanitation work in 11 wards of Balangir municipality, the situation has not improved.
Residents allege that the privatisation move by the municipal authority has been a big let down, because it has failed to deliver the desired result. With occasional rain lashing the town, sanitation work has gone haywire. Heaps of garbage and choked drain now personify the town.
After lot of uncertainties, privatisation of the sanitation work of 11 wards of Balangir municipality was finalised last April and two Cuttack-based firms — Chandan Security Service and Kalinga Vikash — were engaged to take up the job. Initially, 11 wards out of the 21 in the town — wards Nos. 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 19 were included in the programme.
However, the decision of the authorities to privatise the sanitation work seems to have seemed to have flopped.
The firms are paid Rs 55, 000 per ward per month to take up the work, which includes door- to-door collection of waste, drain cleaning and spraying of mosquito oil.
They are also supposed to clean the streets twice a day. Sujit Tripathy of ward No. 11 said that initially the firms were sincere and their work was satisfactory, but it gradually deteriorate.