mumbai

Updated: Mar 19, 2018 09:34 IST

Big housing societies and commercial establishments generating bulk waste are being prosecuted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) for failing to segregate and treat waste in their premises.

Of the 565 bulk-waste generating societies in Andheri (West), 100 societies were found to be violating the mandate set by BMC. They have been prosecuted under the Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act 1888. Many of them will also be penalized.

BMC has made it compulsory for bulk generators to dispose waste on their premises. These generators were supposed to install waste-processing units to treat segregated waste by January 2.

Officials of the solid waste management department of BMC said that societies had been served notices after an inspection. “We made a second inspection after 15 days. Legal action has been taken against societies that still failed to act upon the mandate after a month’s time. However, many societies have started segregating, vermicomposting and using organic waste converters after getting notices,” said an official.

About 10 societies have also been fined Rs500 per day for failing to segregate waste at source. A BMC official added that they will soon start levying a fine on all big societies that fail to manage their own waste.

Bulk-waste generators include societies and commercial establishments that generate more than 100kg of waste daily or are spread on an area more than 20, 000 sq m. Mumbai has 3,351 bulk generators.

In a similar drive to enforce waste management, the civic body deregistered 131 of the city’s advanced locality managements (ALM) after it warned them for being inactive and inefficient in managing waste.