326 Chandigarh households fined since August 1 for unsegregated waste

Cracking the whip against households giving mixed dry and wet garbage, the Chandigarh municipal corporation has issued 326 challans since August 1.

The fine ranges from ₹232 to ₹11,576 per default, depending on the category of the housing unit.

After challaning 370 households in two weeks in July, MC had started an aggressive challan drive from August 1 to push for greater compliance.

“We have been actively conducting awareness drives among households in association with RWAs and other citizen groups to encourage people to give segregated waste. We have also distributed awareness pamphlets through door-to-door garbage collectors. But the violation continues. So, penalties are being imposed on the erring households, with particular focus on regular defaulters,” said MC commissioner Anindita Mitra.

Through a survey, MC has identified 514 houses in the city that are regular defaulters. These households are spread all over the city – in sectors, villages and rehabilitation colonies. However, at 299, majority of the 514 houses are located in sectors.

Sector 15 has the highest number of such houses (51). It is closely followed by Manimajra (45), then EWS Colony (38) and Sector 25 (29).

“While there is particular focus on these 514 houses, we are also closely monitoring all other households from where unsegregated waste is coming. Challans are being issued in all such cases,” said Mitra.

As part of the drive, MC is analysing every garbage collection vehicle coming to the material recovery facilities (MRF) that have dedicated space for sorting of recoverable dry waste, including paper, cards, recyclable plastics, glass bottles, metal, etc.

It has been more than three years since MC mandated segregation of waste at source. But, as per MC officials, around 25% of the waste is still arriving without segregation. Poor segregation record was one of the reasons for Chandigarh’s poor performance in the 2021 Swachh Survekshan rankings.