Draft guidelines to clean Dwarka, HC tells SDMC

Hoping to clean and green the sprawling sub-city of Dwarka by streamlining waste collection, the Delhi High Court has directed the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to draft guidelines and introduce concepts like colour coding.

The issue of waste segregation has to be addressed by civic agencies on a "priority basis", a Bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Pratibha M Singh said while passing the order last month.

It said the draft guidelines should be publicised well by putting it up on the Corporation's website and by providing a copy to each society in the sub-city.

The guidelines are to be finalised only after due consultation with the societies, the Bench said.

"Therefore, the SDMC shall draft simple guidelines highlighting the salient points such as three colour code collection process, the points of collection, days of collection for different types of wastes, the timings of collection.

"Preferably the collection should be done on a shift basis commencing at 4 am in the morning. The point of each collection would be made and the relevant timings etc. should be clearly notified," it said.

The court also asked SDMC and the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to cooperate with each other in compiling the data necessary for the exercise.

Introducing the system of disincentives, it said the guidelines shall indicate clearly if a society or certain residents were not cooperating in waste segregation. They would then be "suitably disincentivised" and "garbage would not be collected from their apartments".