At a meeting of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s (AMC) health and solid waste management committee held on Monday, an SOP was approved to curb illegal dumping of construction and demolition (C&D) waste on roads, footpaths, plots, and other public places.
Now, C&D sanitation squads will be formed for all seven zones of the city to conduct checks and penalise individuals or institutions found dumping C&D waste on roads, footpaths or public places. The fines range from Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
Each zone’s C&D sanitation squad will include retired sanitary inspectors, cleanliness supervisors, retired security personnel and other staff.At Monday’s meeting, AMC also doubled C&D waste collection charges. Twenty-six spots across the city have been designated where C&D waste can be dumped without any charge. If citizens request the AMC to collect the C&D waste, a predetermined charge per metric tonne will apply.
In 2014, AMC’s solid waste management department appointed an agency to collect C&D waste, setting charges per metric tonne. These were revised at Monday’s meeting.
The charge to collect C&D waste weighing less than a metric tonne has been raised from Rs 200 to Rs 500.
For waste weighing between 1 and 5 metric tonnes, the cost has been raised to Rs 500 per metric tonne and Rs 2,000 per trip. This was earlier Rs 225 and Rs 675 respectively.
For more than 5 metric tonnes of C&D waste, the charge was Rs 212.50 per metric tonne and Rs 1,700 per trip. This is now Rs 350 and Rs 4,500 respectively.
Complaints about improper C&D waste disposal as well as collection requests can be made at sub-zonal offices over call or online.