Bhubaneswar: In a bid to improve sanitation in the Capital city, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has hired private security agencies to discourage littering and careless disposal of wastes.
Issuing an official order, the civic authority, under ‘Mu Safaiwala’ campaign has launched the drive at different market places of the city. The agencies hired by the BMC are ordered to coordinate with the enforcement squads of the civic authority and educate or penalise shopkeepers and vendors who are found to be regularly littering in the vicinity.
“We have deployed six security personnel with our enforcement squad. On their first day, Thursday, the security team along with the squad visited market places like Unit 1, Master Canteen, Raj Mahal, Vani Vihar and Rasulgarh. The team will continue its visit on regular basis. The inspections may continue even during evening hours to ensure proper hygiene is maintained,” said BMC deputy commissioner, Sanitation, Suvendu Sahu.
Sources said that the BMC’s move of deploying private security personnel came after the civic authority witnessed acute shortage of manpower owing to prioritising containment of the novel coronavirus. The team has been instructed to enforce and educate the owners of business establishments to use dust bins and penalise them if they continue to flout norms.
It needs to be mentioned that the BMC has collected penalties to the tune of about Rs 10 lakh since March this year. Out of this, around Rs 5 lakh penalty was collected on account of violation of sanitation and littering norms.
Meanwhile, the BMC under its intensive sensitization and citizen connect initiatives, Friday, organised a citizen connect programme in ward number 47 and 48. Under the programme, a team of BMC staff, experts, NGO partners, swachh sathis and safaikarmacharis went around the areas like Gopabandhu Sansad back side area and nearby slums and gave message on source segregation, keeping double dust bins in families for dry and wet wastes and making city litter free.
Distribution of leaflets, soaps and promotion of hand washing habit among safaikarmacharies were undertaken. A tableau was engaged to send out source segregation slogan in the area. It is learnt that micro composting centres would be established in these two wards.
