A sparkling Delhi before 2010

With an eye on the Commonwealth Games 2010, the MCD has taken up the task of civilising unruly Delhiites before the event, reports Neelam Pandey.

With an eye on the Commonwealth Games 2010, the MCD has taken up the task of civilising unruly Delhiites before the event. The civic body, which is finalising the nitty-gritties of implementing the new fines for littering public places, is enlisting the help of private sector to impose the fines on the spot.

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To make sure this drive does not lose steam, senior officials of the civic body will monitor the sanitary inspectors.

Though these penalties exist even now it is not effectively enforced. What’s more there are just a handful of magistrates and few sanitary inspectors who penalize citizens now. These drives just last for a few hours once or twice a week. But with the new system in place, spot-fining will become a regular feature in the city, MCD officials said. To make sure people are not harassed by the inspectors, a complaint line will also be introduced for citizens to lodge complaints.

Owing to shortage of sanitary inspectors the MCD is now planning to outsource the project wherein private inspectors would fine people and give a share to the MCD. “We might outsource the project as it is done in Mumbai and share the fine money with the private player. However, we would also be bringing out a public awareness campaign to educate people. We want to make sure that before the Commonwealth games 2010 people of Delhi are much more civilized,” said Vijendra Gupta, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the MCD.

The civic body has collected a total of four crore and 17 lakh by way of fining in the last 11 months from 12 zones. In West zone of the MCD a total of 9000 people have been challaned in the last 11 months and nearly Rs. 50 lakh has been collected. In Rohini zone a total of 8,500 people have been fined.