Mayor Firhad Hakim on Friday asked a senior official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s solid waste management department to prosecute more people for littering roads.
Hakim gave the instruction after listening to a grievance of a Kolkatan, who said that despite the civic body removing waste from in front of his home, residents were throwing garbage on the road.
“Please issue notices against such people (who litter),” Hakim told the official.
“Sir, we have already imposed fines on 1,200 people within a short period,” the official told the mayor. Hakim retorted saying 1,200 was a small number.
“1,200 is nothing. You have to prosecute 1 lakh people,” he said.
Hakim’s statement suggested that he wanted civic officials to be more aggressive in imposing penalties on people found littering roads. “We will clean the roads and some will keep throwing waste on the roads,” Hakim said in a tone of disapproval.
A KMC official said the civic body was empowered to impose penalties on people found littering roads.
Individuals littering a road will have to pay Rs 525 for the first offence. The fine for the second offence is Rs 735 and for every subsequent offence, Rs 1,050.
Officials of the KMC’s solid waste management department can impose spot fines. The provision for the fines has been in place for a year but officials have stepped up imposing penalties in the last three or four months.
Piles of waste often have containers — small and big cups, plates and glasses — which could turn into mosquito-breeding sites once water accumulates in them. The dengue-causing Aedes ageypti mosquito can breed in a coin-sized blob of water, according to public health experts.