MUMBAI (AFP) – Officials in India’s financial capital began a “zero tolerance” campaign to clear Mumbai’s mucky streets of people taking furtive roadside toilet breaks, illegal hawking and rubbish dumping.
A team of up to 300 officials will patrol 160 key arterial roads in the city with powers to order fines of up to 1,000 rupees (22.50 dollars) as part of a campaign to change attitudes in the litter-strewn city.
Thousands of tonnes of uncleared rubbish were blamed for blocking the city’s aging drainage system, which was held partly responsible for the monsoon flooding last year which left more than 400 people dead.
But inadequate facilities and a growing population of almost 20 million, with most living in slums, also leave their mark with the smell of urine in the streets, footways stained red from betel nut spit and blocked gutters. “We have selected 160 roads and these will be monitored for zero tolerance,” said commissioner Johny Joseph of the city’s administrative body.
“We want to have a total collection of garbage — we don’t want garbage from hawkers and the people who cook on the road. “We are looking for an attitudinal change. Initially we will continue this campaign for a week and we want to extend it.” Environmentalists accused city officials of doing too little coupled with an inefficient waste collection and disposal system.
But they also criticised citizens for doing too little to look after the crowded city. “An Indian person abroad is a different animal who doesn’t spit on the pavement and follows all the rules.
When he comes back to Mumbai he is the same as normal,” said Debi Goenka, of the Conservation Action Trust. “Frankly I don’t think anything has been done to learn from last year’s mistakes. I’m thinking of buying a boat.”