Big housing societies must process their own waste or pay fine, says BMC

Mumbai's BMC mandates large residential complexes to process their own waste or set up local facilities, starting June, to comply with Supreme Court rules.

MUMBAI: Soon, residential complexes that have floor area of 20,000 square meters or more, and consume 40,000 litres of water or generate 100 kilograms of waste every day, will either have to process garbage within their own premises or establish common waste processing facilities in their localities at their own cost.

Big housing societies must process their own waste or pay fine, says BMC

This was announced through a public notice issued on Thursday by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), urging all Bulk Waste Generators (BWG), which include large housing societies, to register with the civic body within 15 days through its official website and start processing their own waste.

BMC’s move comes on the back of a Supreme Court (SC) mandate to implement Solid Waste Management (SWM) rules, on February 19, 2026. The SWM Rules, 2026, came into force on April 1, 2026.

The set-up will be implemented from June 1 in S-Ward (Bhandup, Powai, Vikhroli) and N-Ward (Ghatkopar East and West). It will subsequently be carried forward across the city in phases. “Societies that fail to comply by the new norms due to constraints such as lack of space, could turn to the BMC for help by paying a user fee to take care of the processing,” said additional municipal commissioner (city), Ashwini Joshi, on Thursday.

While the user fee is yet to be determined, it could be in the form of credits. “BMC currently spends ₹812 to process 1 ton of garbage; the user fee is likely to be proportionate to that,” said Kiran Dighavkar, deputy commissioner (solid waste management). Failure to process the garbage could also attract a penalty as per provisions of the SWM rules.

The civic body is currently training around 350 junior supervisors to levy fines on societies that fail to fall in line. Joshi however added that the “BMC will be citizen-friendly, and to that end will undertake awareness drives and initiatives about garbage segregation”.

Meanwhile, societies will also have to segregate garbage into four different

categories – wet, dry, sanitary (such as diapers and sanitary napkins) and special care waste (hazardous waste such as expired medicines, bulbs and batteries). The special care waste, dumped in yellow bins, is presently scientifically processed with plasma incineration by the BMC.

The new move is likely to cause unease among citizens residing in large housing societies. Sunil Desai, chairman of Redwood Society, Mulund, which comprises 267 flats, red-flagged one of them as he said: “While we segregate wet and dry garbage and place the bins outside our gate from where BMC’s conservancy staff collects them, we are unable to compost the garbage as we lack space in our society – all of it has been taken up by a borewell and car parking What do we do in such a situation?”