Is Chennai going the Singapore way? Naaah.. I don’t think so. It certainly doesn’t seem so from this penalty chart that the government has released!! While on the topic, I wonder what happened to the ‘other’ cleanup plans we have seen in the past? Remember the City cleanup proposal by Neel Metal Fanalca ^[1]? or the port cleanup ^[2] activity? or the river cleanup ^[3] plan? or the innovative coastal cleanup competition ^[4]? Anyway.. let’s not do a postmortem, and be as hopeful as before and believe that there is always a miracle waiting to happen that would solve all our country’s problems….

^[5]

CHENNAI: The Corporation Council on Thursday approved rules setting down penalties for littering, spitting, bathing or urinating in public, besides fines for improper disposal of garbage or feeding animals in locations other than those set aside for such activity.

Heres a summarization of the news:

1. New rules and penalties in place for littering, spitting, bathing or urinating in public, besides fines for improper disposal of garbage or feeding animals in locations other than those set aside for such activity.
2. Those not segregating garbage can also be fined.
3. An intensive awareness campaign would be undertaken in February and March.
4. Once the system was running, the local body would take steps to reduce the number of public dustbins.
5. Effective from April 1.

We were discussing this over coffee today at my office and as usual like with any other discussion on anything on the topics of chennai, improvement, hope, government etc., the discussion soon evolved into hot debate!!! A few interesting points did come up and here they are….

• Some felt that the city’s infrastructure isn’t enough to take in these kind of laws.
• We need more public toilets/lavatories before enforcing the rule on public urination etc.
• We do not have enough dustbins on the streets to ensure that people do not throw garbage on the streets.
• We still do not have a really effective system to collect bio-degradable and non bio-degradable garbage from homes and offices.
• Either we should have more spittoons in the city or ban chewing tobacco.
• And more importantly I wonder how the authorities are going to impose this law on animals (specifically cattle and dogs) that have a free-roaming license in the city.

Should be interesting to watch the city authorities trying to impose these… Nevertheless, its a really good initiative. Atleast some people in the government are actually thinking of improving the city.

[ read original news post ^[6] ]