Garbage dumped on the roadside in various areas of Cuttack. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Aug. 7: The civic body’s first-of-its-kind attempt to collect fees from commercial establishments for waste disposal has drawn a good response.

So far, around 400 shops, nursing homes, kalyan mandaps, restaurants and hotels have entered into an agreement with the Cuttack Municipal Corporation for daily disposal of solid waste.

Earlier, the civic body had planned to include more than 1,000 restaurants and 50 kalyan mandaps of the city in the waste collection plan.

However, officials said the ongoing efforts to streamline waste collection and disposal system would be completed by the year-end.

“Though we have not achieved 100 per cent success, a lot of people and commercial establishments are coming forward to pay us for collection of waste,” said city health officer P.K. Pradhan.

Various commercial establishments — such as shops, malls and nursing homes — are being charged a user fee ranging between Rs 200 and Rs 4,000 a month depending on the quantity of solid waste generated.

Thirteen auto-tipper vehicles have been engaged to collect garbage from various shops, restaurants, hotels, nursing homes and private clinics.

Another official of the corporation said each vehicle collected around five to six quintals of waste every day, while the total waste collection was from the users was around 79 quintals.

“We plan to cover 500 more commercial establishments by December. Our aim is to collect revenue of around Rs 60 lakh annually from the ongoing drive,” said Pradhan.

The corporation started the system of charging user fees for waste collection from the various business establishments, especially bulk producers of solid waste, from February. The decision was taken after the civic body found that various individuals and institutions, including nursing homes, were disposing waste on the roadside.

“Earlier, kalyan mandaps used to dump piles of garbage on the roadside in our locality after every event. It used to take a couple of days to get cleared. But now, things have changed as the corporation’s sanitary staff are clearing the waste the very next day after an event,” Satya Sundar Rout, a resident of Mahanadi Vihar.

The corporation has ordered all the members of its sanitary staff to check whether any hotel or restaurant is continuing to litter the roads. A notice will be issued to the offenders in case of first violation. Subsequently, they will be asked to pay user fees for systematic regular disposal of waste.