Poor garbage management may cost traders licences

The BBMP is planning to withdraw trade licences of shops and business establishments who do not properly manage garbage.

The BBMP also plans to introduce the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS) for the traders to declare on their own the space used by them for commercial activities. Based on the SAS, the Palike will issue trade licences.

The BBMP Special Commissioner K R Niranjan said the Palike would make such provision to ensure cleanliness in the City.

He made these statements after Almitra Patel, an expert in Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), cited the example of Ranchi where the campaign 'Mera Aangan Saaf' (My courtyard is clean) yielded good results.

Niranjan was participating in a panel discussion at the Freedom Park here where a week-long “Wake Up, Clean Up,” expo is on, “When Ranchi can do it, why not Bangalore?” was Patel's argument.

She wanted to know whether the trade licences given to business establishments can be scrapped if they compromise on cleanliness. Supporting the idea, some others from the audience suggested why not the drive be started from February itself when traders renew trade licences.

Public notice

Niranjan agreed with the idea and assured them that the Palike would make necessary provisions. “We will issue a public notice in newspapers that traders will have to adhere to the segregation of waste rule or else they will lose their trade licence.”

But, there is a glitch in implementing this proposal. Niranjan said, “Out of six lakh-odd commercial establishments, only 60,000 have trade licences while others are functioning illegally.

“Presently, the BBMP has no concrete mechanism to bring all illegal business units under its trade licence bracket. We will plan to use the Bescom data, which has details of all the business establishments operating in the City. We will use the electricity consumption as the basis to assess the space used by the commercial establishments.”