The National Green Tribunal on Monday directed that anybody who was caught disposing of garbage in a public space would be slapped with a fine of Rs 10,000. The tribunal further directed that all the respective authorities were now to be under a statutory obligation to make sure that all the waste was collected, transported and disposed of according to the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016 so that this waste does not cause a public hazard. NGT chairperson Swatanter Kumar Kumar spoke to the IE and said that all the major sources of solid waste generation, which are mostly hotels, restaurants, slaughterhouses, vegetable markets among others were to be directed to provide segregated waste and hand over the same water to the Corporation according to the rules.
Kumar added that any of these institutions, people, residents, slaughter houses and vegetable markets and others who did not comply with the given rules and continued disposing waste over drains and other public places could be fined at the rate of Rs 10,000 per default. Kumar added that the city generated 9,600 metric tonnes of solid waste per day and the municipal body was not prepared with a plan to deal with such amount of waste. Kumar asked the commissioner of each of these corporations to build a plan, a map within a month to provide an incentive to people for encouraging them to segregate the waste at source. He suggested that such incentive could be a way of rebating in property tax.
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Kumar warned that penalties could be imposed on residents and societies for not providing segregated waste. It should be kept in mind that as per the ‘polluter pays’ principle, each one would be liable to pay for the pollution they cause, Kumar added. Kumar finally said that it was the responsibility of the citizen to make sure that solid waste was handled properly and it did not add to pollution. He concluded by saying that the entire burden could not be transferred to the state or authorities.