kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to put a leash on the setting up of cold water kiosks in the city without having a maintenance agreement with the civic body. Meanwhile, Kolkata Municipal Corporation will take up massive awareness drive, involving school children, to dissuade people from using plastic less than 75 micron.
A number of such cold water kiosks in the city are lying crippled due to non-maintenance and posing a risk in the context of safety of water.
Councillor of ward 98 Arup Chakraborty flagged off the apprehension, that a good number of kiosks particularly those located under Borough XIII and several other KMC wards have not witnessed any sort of maintenance and consumption of such water may pose serious health hazards, at the monthly meeting of the civic body on Friday.
Many such water kiosks have come up with the initiative of local councillors. But as there has been no agreement regarding maintenance, the companies that have set up such facilities have been negligent towards checking of water filter or other equipment responsible for offering potable drinking water. "From now on, we will allow only those companies which will enter into an agreement at least for 5 years with our Water Supply department regarding periodic maintenance of such cold water kiosks and keep the department updated about such work. We will pull down the advertisement boards of the existing companies that have set up such kiosks but have been lackadaisical towards maintenance,"Mayor Firhad Hakim said. Chakraborty proposed to the KMC to take measures so that more cold water kiosks in the city are set up considering the fact that the hot weather conditions will persist at least for the next three to four months. The councillors of all the 144 wards of the civic body have been asked by Mayor Firhad Hakim to lay special emphasis on organising campaigns in the best way possible to stop the use of plastic.
"The gully pits get choked with discarded plastic bottles, thermocol plates dumped indiscriminately and hence drainage often becomes an issue. We have seen that even plastics have accumulated in catchment areas of the drainage pumping stations robbing it of its 100 per cent effectiveness. So, its high time that people should be aware of such problems posed by plastic and stop its use," Mayor Firhad Hakim said.
Swapan Samaddar, who is in-charge of the Environment department of the KMC, said that awareness regarding plastic ban of less than 75 micron will be one of the topmost priority after the World Environment Day on June 5. "Awareness in markets through miking and also through regular drives will be taken up and penal measures will be enforced if the sellers and the customers continue to flout rules," he added.