BMC recovers Rs 24 lakh in fine by penalising violators of AQI norms

The BMC’s data covered the periods between November 4 and 28, this year.

Besides this, the BMC has also recovered Rs 24,900 by penalizing violators who were seen burning garbage at open public spaces. In one of its reports from the ‘Death by Breath’ series, published on October 25, The Indian Express have highlighted how since the BMC’s Solid Waste Management (SWM) was drafted in 2006, no penalty was levied on any violator for burning garbage in the open public spaces of Mumbai.

Furthermore, the BMC’s data also showed that the highest overall penalty amount of Rs 4.4 lakh have been recovered from T-ward (Mulund) followed by Rs 2.4 lakh each H/West (Bandra) and Rs 1.8 lakh from N (Ghatkopar) ward.

For garbage burning, the highest amount of Rs 10,000 was recovered from Parel area, followed by Rs 5,000 recovered from C-ward (Kalbadevi) and Rs 3,200 in M/East (Govandi, Mankhurd) wards. Meanwhile, the highest penalty amount of Rs 2.7 lakh by fining contractors was levied at Mulund, followed by Rs 1.8 lakh each in Bandra and Ghatkopar.

Civic officials maintained that fine collection is not the primary objective as this step is being taken up as the last resort against the violators who continue to flout the norms despite multiple reminders.

“Since October 20, we have issued close to thousand intimation letters asking the stakeholders to comply with the norms. Even after that, many were seen flouting the rules and to them, we had sent stop-work notices. For those who still continued to not follow the norms were either penalized or booked by lodging a police complaint,” said an official.

The civic officials also stated that the penalty amount recovered from vehicles seen transporting construction debris without covering them is also lesser in amount as the Bombay High Court (HC) had disallowed transportation for debris for nearly two weeks. However, on November 22, after the unseasonal rains improved the city’s AQI, the BMC allowed transportation of construction debris from several construction sites in Mumbai.

Besides this, the BMC has sent out stop-work notices to all the 763 construction sites across all the 24 municipal wards in Mumbai asking them to immediately stop construction works and abide by the rules laid by civic authorities.