Mumbai civic body frames strict tender norms for round-the-clock cleanliness of Juhu beach

New conditions include doing away with a blanket minimum collection of garbage, an increase in number of cleaning machines and a fine on contractors for failing to maintain cleanliness 24x7

After chief minister Devendra Fadnavis announced that a marine litter policy will be developed, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has issued tenders with new conditions for the Juhu beach clean-up.

BMC workers on Juhu beach. (HT PHOTO)

New conditions include doing away with a blanket minimum collection of garbage, an increase in number of cleaning machines and a fine on contractors for failing to maintain cleanliness 24x7.

For instance, tender conditions had earlier mandated that the contractor clear only 25 tonnes of garbage daily. However, during monsoon, there is at least 150 tonnes of garbage washing ashore daily.

“The new contract will be effective from March 2018. We have made sure that the tender conditions are stricter. It will keep the beach clean round the clock,” said Vijay Singhal, additional municipal commissioner, in charge of solid waste management department.

The civic body also announced citizen participation and opinions in beach cleaning process across the city.

According to the BMC, it deploys JCBs to dump collected trash in trucks, two beach combers that pick up and segregate plastic from the sand and 40 labourers to manually pick up trash at Juhu beach. Of these, residents activists complained that the beach combers that run on diesel are not maintained and used by the contractor. There have also been complaints about beach combers being ineffective in wet sand.

Contractors will now have to use different machines for dry and monsoon season.