MC takes a hard line on dumping of garbage

Taking notice of the dumping of waste on public roads by commercial establishments, the municipal corporation had constituted two mobile teams to identify the erring ones and impose stiff penalties on them.

Municipal Commissioner C. Anuradha said a private firm had been assigned the task of collecting and segregating solid and wet waste and moving them to the dumping yard at Naidupalem.

“Sanitation has emerged as a major challenge and we will not spare anyone spoiling the roads. Hefty penalties will be imposed and if the shopkeepers keep on littering the roads, we will seal the shops,’’ said Ms. Anuradha.

Under ‘Oorante Gunture’, a fortnightly campaign to improve sanitation launched in 2013, the GMC gave a big push to door-to-door collection of waste, segregation of dry and wet waste and convert them into energy.

GMC procured hundreds of push carts and involved SHG women to collect waste from houses. The campaign began well, but petered out soon as the municipal corporation had no wherewithal to recycle waste.

In 2015, GMC decided to set up a 15 MW waste-to-energy plant by JITF Urban Infrastructure Ltd, a firm owned by Jindal company, at Obulunaiduvaripalem on the Guntur-Chennai national highway.An agreement was signed with the firm, and is now in the process of securing the various clearances.