Clean-up marshals' services to be discontinued from tomorrow in Mumbai, says civic body

Complaints received by BMC revealed that many marshals violated several regulations. Representational pic

The Solid Waste Management Department of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has discontinued the services of the representatives and agencies appointed under the ‘Clean-Up Marshal' initiative under the Swachh Mumbai Abhiyan for monitoring public cleanliness in Mumbai with effective from Friday, April 4.

Accordingly, if any clean-up marshal is found imposing fines after Friday, citizens are urged to contact the Mumbai civic body's divisional control room at at 022-23855128 and 022-23877691 (extension 549/500) to lodge a complaint, BMC said.

Last month, mid-day.com had reported that after taking serious note of continuous complaints regarding clean-up marshals, Municipal Commissioner and Administrator Bhushan Gagrani had ordered the discontinuation of their services and termination of the appointment of these representatives and the agencies who hire them from April 4.

The civic body instead aims to make the ‘Swachh Mumbai Abhiyan' more citizen-centric and to create awareness on cleanliness.

BMC has been conducting various initiatives and awareness campaigns under the guidance of Gagrani and Additional Municipal Commissioner Ashwini Joshi.

As part of this, the ‘Clean-Up Marshal' initiative was introduced, under which marshals were appointed across all 24 administrative wards in Mumbai. Each ward had 30 marshals deployed through 12 different agencies. The implementation guidelines and principles were also defined under this scheme.

Over the past one year, the clean-up marshals have collected fines totaling Rs 4,93,73,712. While enforcing cleanliness rules, they were expected to educate citizens on cleanliness norms and ensure compliance.

However, complaints received by the BMC revealed that many marshals violated several regulations.

The violations included failure to visit designated locations as directed by administrative departments, targeting construction sites where action was not required, frequent absenteeism despite the expectation of 24X7 monitoring, negligence in biometric attendance, overcharging citizens beyond prescribed fines, operating outside designated zones, and imposing fines at hotels, banquet halls, hoardings, and billboards, which were not part of their contractual scope.

Consequently, the contracts of all agencies associated with the ‘Clean-Up Marshals' initiative will be terminated from April 4, mid-day.com had reported.

While the ‘Clean-Up Marshal' initiative is being discontinued, the implementation of the ‘Swachh Mumbai Abhiyan' will continue, and the Mumbai civic body will soon introduce new measures, Deputy Commissioner (Solid Waste Management) Kiran Dighavkar said.