Mumbai: BMC refuses to reduce fine for plastic usage defaulters

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has backtracked on its proposal to fine-tune the penalty amount levied by the state government in the plastic ban. Days after it proposed reducing the fine from the lofty Rs 5,000 to a reasonable Rs 200 for citizens and hawkers, the Shiv Sena-led civic body rejected the proposal on Wednesday.

Mid-day reports that the proposal of the new and reduced Rs 200 fine was tabled on Wednesday for final approval before BMC’s law and revenue committee, which is headed by Shiv Sena corporator Suvarna Karanje. Ironically, all committee members, including Sena corporators, sent back the proposal to the civic administration. However, when mid-day spoke to Karanje on Monday, she’d assured it would be passed as it is in the larger public interest.
Asked about the change in her stand, Karanje said, “We have rejected the proposal as we don’t have the powers to change the law introduced by the state government. We have told the administration to send this proposal to the state government and let them decide.”

Standing committee chairman Yashvant Jadhav said, “The civic body’s proposal of reducing the fine to Rs 200 is very less and won’t have much of an effect on citizens.”
In March, the state government had announced the ban on plastic and proposed fines of Rs 5,000, Rs 10,000 and Rs 25,000.
In ‘Even before ban, BMC wants to slash plastic fines,’ on June 19, mid-day reported about the BMC’s idea to reduce the fine to Rs 200, as the Rs 5,000 amount had been deemed ‘impractical’ and likely to cause conflict.

Deputy municipal commissioner Nidhi Choudhary said, “There was no clarity on the fine mentioned in the state’s proposal of plastic ban. The proposal was ambiguous about the fine as it had stated that penalty up to Rs 5,000 could be imposed. With this law, there was a possibility of misuse by inspectors as it says ‘up to,’ without any mention of the exact amount. Considering all of these problems, we had proposed reducing the fine amount. I admit that we had delayed the proposal and it should have been sent earlier.”

She added, “Now, we will impose the exact fine amount of Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000. There will be no negotiation on the fine amount.” Recently, the BMC also published a list of inspectors who will enforce the plastic ban across Mumbai.