CHENNAI: The city corporation has identified 188 garbage ‘hotspots’ across the 15 zones in the city to prevent dumping of garbage near dustbins and street corners and to stop empty plots being used as dumping grounds for months.
Action taken with regard to each of these hotspots will be reviewed by corporation commissioner Gagandeep Singh Bedi once every 15 days and officials are also in the process of identifying more such hotspots.The city corporation has so far cleared around 67 of these hotspots but residents continue to dump garbage at these cleared spots creating fresh trouble, officers said.
“Once we clear the garbage hotspots, we notice that some people again dump waste. The place may again become a hotspot,” a corporation official said. To address the issue, residents who dump waste near cleared hotspots may be fined Rs 500, sources said. CCTV cameras are available near 70 of these hotspots and wherever there are no CCTVs, zonal officials and conservancy operators have been told to be on the lookout for those dumping waste.
“For the first time, we will clear the garbage and no questions will be asked but we have been instructed to penalize those who continue to dump waste in these spots. Our door-to-door collection covers every part of the city and there is no reason for anyone to throw waste near dustbins,” said a corporation official.
The city corporation, apart from strengthening its door-to-door garbage collection system, has also intensified its night-time operations with around 3,000 conservancy workers being deployed every night. The civic body has also asked residents to hand over sanitary napkins separately to waste collectors for them to be taken to incinerators without ending up in landfills.