Apartments fined Rs 12L for not sorting trash

The BBMP has fined 18-odd apartment complexes in and around eight wards in the city, that the civic body says are not adhering to waste segregation practices.

“A total of Rs 12 lakh has been imposed as fine on 18 apartment complexes. The BBMP has penalised every individual house Rs 2000, that has violated the waste segregation norms,” said Manoranjan Hegde, BBMP’s chief health officer. The apartments have been given four days time to pay the penalties.

The penalised apartments are in Hosakerehalli, Padmanabhanagar, Kumaraswamy Layout, Kempapura Agrahara, Ganesha Mandira, Yediyuru and Chikkalasandra wards.

The BBMP had made mandatory the segregation of waste in all city households effective from February 1, 2017.

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) conducted a spot inspection of the apartment complexes earlier this week and slapped fines for not segregating waste.

Now, the residents are fuming over the hefty fines. BBMP’s totally unexpected move on apartments barring individual houses has raised eyebrows. Some of the apartment complexes in Kumaraswamy Layout have been imposed a penalty of Rs 1.5 lakh, according to a BBMP notification.

“Our housekeeping staff segregate waste at source. Sometimes they do accidentally mix plastic with wet waste. But they fix it before the waste is moved to wet and dry waste bins. BBMP officials who came for the spot inspection thought the waste is dumped in the bins without segregation. They imposed penalties with no specific indication as to why the fine is Rs 1.5 lakh. This is too much to pay,” said Anitha Udupa, a resident of Pramukh Temple Meadows.

“BBMP’s approach displays a lack of transparency. Choosing apartments that have adhered to guidelines and slapping them with fines for flimsy reasons is ridiculous. The BBMP should engage with the residents to jointly tackle the solid waste management crisis,” said Vikram Rai, treasurer and SWM lead, Bangalore Apartments’ Federation.

Residents say the BBMP should also check on individual houses.

“It is the duty of the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department to check individual houses. We, medical officers, focus only on bulk generators like apartments. We would love to check on individual houses too and create awareness about segregation. But we are not allowed to do that,” said a BBMP official.

BBMP had called a meeting with the representatives of the apartments on Saturday to discuss issues pertaining to waste segregation and resolution.