Bhubaneswar: The civic body has developed with a new concept for apartment buildings and star and non-star hotels to ensure better sanitation in the city.

The civic body, through the initiative - Express Cleaning - will deploy a dedicated sanitation team to clean hotel and apartment premises and also transport the waste to nearby collection points from where those would be transported to the dumping yard. The owner or the caretaker of the facility will have to call the civic body, which will then send the sanitation team. Sources said the initiative's rapid and rigorous progress have lent the name to it.

"We have already started registering house owners' associations of apartments to ensure the cleanliness of their premises. The present initiative will include hotels. The cleaning will be done periodically for which the owners' associations or hotel owner/caretaker will have to pay a certain fee," said a civic official.

Hotels were targeted for the initiative since they generate more organic waste.

"There are already plans to set up five decentralised compost plants at our temporary transit station near Sainik Square. We will need biodegradable waste for the plants and hotels are the major generator of such wastes. Since those don't manage the waste well, we have decided to take over it," said the official.

The matter of introducing such a concept was discussed in the civic body's monthly council meeting last month where the councillors and the officials gave their inputs. According to one suggestion, the city health officer will be in charge of coordinating the activities to ensure the plan's error-free implementation.

"We want to maintain better sanitation in the city and we will need to involve people in it. We are here to render the service, but the people should maintain the cleanliness around them. We are optimistic that the new plan would yield good results," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

Residents also welcomed the move. "The city is failing to keep itself clean and it reflected in its Swachh Survekshan rank. There needs to be concrete effort to bring back the city's lost image," said Saheed Nagar resident Janmejaya Tripathy.