In a stern move against the act of littering roads, Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh has decided to send the garbage back to the source as a ‘return gift’.
According to reports, the Kakinada district administration, in its new cleanliness initiative, would have the sanitation workers dump the garbage back at the houses that are caught irresponsibly and indiscriminately discard the waste on roads and public places.
KMC has started an initiative of Return Gift by which the garbage will be given back to the citizens who are not giving it to the sanitary workers and instead littering on roads and in drains. #ReturnGift@SwachhBharatGov @Secretary_MoHUA @SBMGAP @AndhraPradeshCM @SwachSurvekshan pic.twitter.com/RQAyh3Ivg0
— Kakinada Municipal Corporation (@kakinada_KMC) November 7, 2020
Announcing the decision on Saturday, November 7, Kakinada Municipal Commissioner Swapnil Dinakar Pundkar shared that the administration was forced to take the decision after seeing a woman throwing garbage on the road while the sanitation workers were on waste-collection duty.
Pundkar, then, asked one of the workers to take the garbage back to the house of the woman. When the shocked house owner tried to resist the worker’s action, the municipal commissioner explained to her not to litter roads.
Appealing to all the citizen’s to consider this #ReturnGift initiative positively to show gratitude to the sanitary workers and other fellow citizens who are cooperating with the Corporation@sudhakarudumula @umasudhir@ndtv @TOIIndiaNews @BDUTT@sardesairajdeep @ravishndtv
— Kakinada Municipal Corporation (@kakinada_KMC) November 7, 2020
‘We started the sensitisation drive in the city three days ago and if the people do not change their attitude and continue to dump garbage on roads and at public places, we will impose a fine on them,” he told The New Indian Express.
So #Kakinada municipal commissioner is supervising ‘#ReturnGift’ of #garbage to every household that does not hand over trash to municipal worker who does door-to-door collection & instead dump irresponsibly on the road or in drains @ndtv @ndtvindia @kakinada_KMC #SwachchBharat pic.twitter.com/H6AfiPqOCY
— Uma Sudhir (@umasudhir) November 7, 2020
The officer further added that there are 900 sanitation workers in Kakinada, exclusively for collecting garbage.
Requesting citizens to hand over the segregated waste to sanitary staff. Such incidents will lead to formation of Garbage Vulnerable PointIf you have any issues regarding sanitation please contact our Toll-Free Number 18004250325 #ReturnGift @umasudhir @ndtv @SwachhBharatGov pic.twitter.com/brSu1oydeE
— Kakinada Municipal Corporation (@kakinada_KMC) November 8, 2020
‘They collect garbage from 7 am to 9 am. Every house is given an RFID (‘radio frequency identification) tag, which the sanitation worker scans so that their physical presence at every household is registered. Most people are responding well to this, but not all,’ he explained.
‘Now, we are collecting all kinds of garbage together. After three months or so, we will start collecting dry and wet garbage separately. People have a habit of throwing garbage near waste bins, rather than inside them. So we are planning to remove the dumper bins in the city within a year. We want Kakinada to stand ahead in the race for Smart Cities. Sanitation and cleanliness are our priorities,’ said the minister.
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