A report by Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) nuisance detection squad (NDS) reveals that 28.91% cases out of 52,213 incidences of civic nuisance were registered in South-West and West Nagpur assembly constituencies.In the last one year, the NDS team has fined 15,128 people from Laxmi Nagar and Mangalwari zones for civic nuisance.
Residents of Gandhibagh zone top the chart when it comes to blocking roads by putting up pandals. Of the 14,236 such cases registered by NDS, 2,384 were from this zone.
The NDS team kept a close watch in residential and market areas, bus stops, railway stations in lookout for incidents of littering, spitting, and other civic nuisances, said Dr Gajendra Mahalle, deputy municipal commissioner (solid waste management department).
Despite interference by political parties, as many 52,312 violators were fined Rs5.78 crore, which translates into 144 citizens and traders being penalized every day.
Most of the violators were caught for putting pandals on roads, followed by littering in public, footpath encroachments, stocking construction material on roads, footpaths, use of banned single use plastic bags, and urinating in open spaces, reveals statistics compiled by the NDS team led by Virsen Tambe.
Residents of Lakadganj and Satranjipura zones have done better than those from posh areas in following civic sense. In these zones, the NDS team penalized 3,107 and 3,536 citizens respectively for various civic violations.
The fine for citizens throwing garbage is Rs100, while a penalty of Rs 200 and Rs 500 are recovered for spitting and urinating at public spaces. There is a provision of a hefty Rs1 lakh fine for dumping biomedical waste in the open.
“Even after eight years of the Swachh Bharat Mission, NDS needs to penalize defaulters. Since 2014, campaigns have been conducted by the central government. Still, the ground reality hasn’t changed much,” said environmentalist and NMC swachhata ambassador Kaustav Chatterjee.
Special team formed
for plastic ban cases
Additional municipal commissioner Anchal Goyal has formed a special 70-jawan NDS team to act against people using banned single-use plastic bags.
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