Commissioner of Mangalore City Corporation Harish Kumar K. said on Friday that the civic body would open a helpline for informing the corporation if solid waste is not picked up from doorsteps of people.
People can complain by sending short message (SMS) on cell phones to a dedicated number, he said at the monthly meeting of the council.
Mr. Kumar said that door-to-door collection of solid waste in the city should start by December 1. But the contractors had sought a fortnight to prepare themselves. Hence, they would be given a relaxation till then. But the collection from doorsteps would start by the end of December.
The Commissioner said the corporation had made it mandatory from this October that builders constructing apartments with more than 20 flats in them should build a sewage treatment plant on the premises of the apartments for treating sewage water generated from the flats.
The council decided to write to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada not to construct any toll gate on the national highways in the jurisdiction of the corporation.
A majority of the councillors appreciated the ban imposed on the use of plastic carry bags and plastic cups in the city. They said that polypropylene bags issued by traders as an alternative to plastic carry bags should be banned as they said it was nothing but another form of plastic. The councillors said the civic body should intensify its raids on traders and others to check plastic menace in the city. It should seize polypropylene bags.
Sudhir Shetty Kannur, a councillor, said the civic body should ban use of plastic bottles in the city as they were choking storm-water drains and water bodies.
Another councillor Harinath said that those who opposed ban on use of plastic carry bags should visit the civic body’s dumping yard at Panchchanady to get a true picture of the menace caused by plastic. The Commissioner said that as a petition pertaining to ban on the use of plastic carry bags and cups in the city had been filed before Karnataka High Court and he had been made a party in it and he would not like to comment on the matter.
