PCMC slaps ₹5,000 fine on housing society for not installing composting unit

Pune The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Monday collected ₹5,000 fine from a Wakad-based housing society for its failure to set up a garbage process

Pune The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) on Monday collected ₹5,000 fine from a Wakad-based housing society for its failure to set up a garbage process unit on the society premises.

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Dr Anil Roy, PCMC chief medical officer, said, “There are several societies in Pimpri-Chinchwad that generate more than 100 kg waste daily, but have not set up processing units on the premises. Many have failed to take any action despite several reminders from civic authorities.”

The civic official said that authorities have issued notices to housing societies before taking legal action. In zonal ward E, the civic body has collected ₹5,000 fine from The Island Society located at Wakad.

PCMC collects more than 850 metric tonnes of garbage every day from the twin town. The garbage is processed at the Moshi depot where dry and wet waste is segregated and converted to mechanical and vermin-composting. Increasing population has put pressure on waste collection and treatment system with the civic administration giving adequate time for bigger housing societies to set up composting units to treat wet waste. As per the civic body, many societies have failed to build such units and the administration, from April 1, decided to stop collecting garbage from societies having 100 units and more.

According to the provision of Solid Waste Management Rule 2016, it is legally mandatory to segregate wet and dry waste. The civic body will only collect segregated dry waste from societies that generate more than 100 kgs of wet waste per day. Therefore, it was made mandatory to install waste composting units in such residential societies. The municipal corporation had also given March 31, 2019 as the deadline for the arrangement of waste composting units and stopped collecting waste from April 2019. However, political pressure forced the civic body to extend the deadline of installing composting units, according to a civic official.

Rahul Koli, the property manager of Island Society, said, “We have received the notice from PCMC, but cannot set up a composting unit for lack of space. We have appointed private vendors to pick up the wet and dry garbage from our society.”

Koli said that the society pays ₹6,000 to private vendors and the step has been taken to not burden the municipal corporation on waste management. The residential society located at Shankar Kalatenagar started in 2010 and has 223 flats.