MUMBAI, Dec 2: Despite facing a deficit of Rs 174.75 crore, the Bihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has planned to go ahead with its ongoing cleanliness drive. According to Additional Municipal Commissioner Ratnakar Gaikwad, though the 20 per cent cut on all possible expenditure ordered by Municipal Commissioner Girish Gokhale will restrain the BMC from taking on additional responsibility of removing garbage from private slums, the drive will not lose momentum in areas already covered under it.

``Almost all big private slums in the city have already been made garbage-free and the amenities provided to these slums will not be withdrawn,'' Gaikwad asserted and added that the BMC will also provide necessary amenities to the 176 adopted slums soon.

However, the BMC has decided to stop giving new contracts to Sulabh International for the construction of public toilets and started adopting more cost effective methods instead. ``In the last 10 years, Sulabh constructed only 205 toilets in the entire city, but under the new scheme adopted by the BMC in February, 450 toilet blocks have been planned to be constructed in the next two years. Twelve blocks have already been made operational,'' Gaikwad said.

Under the slum-adoption programme, a population of about 13.50 lakh living in 176 slums adopted by the BMC and various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) would be targeted and concerted efforts will be made to solve their problems on a long-term basis. One of the major achievements of the drive has been the clean-up of around 5,000 house gullies in the B ward, which had been reduced to dumping grounds over the years, Gaikwad said. ``We took up the house gullies in the B ward as a pilot project and first tried to put garbage bins at the mouth of each house gully, but it only resulted in more accumulation of garbage at the entrance of the gullies,'' he pointed out.

It was then decided to send jeeps and tempos to collect garbage from these buildings twice-a-day. ``We launched a house-to-house campaign with the help of women community health volunteers to prepare the residents to respond to the new method. Today, the seemingly impossible-to-clean house gullies are not only clean, but the jeeps and tempos make 50 trips daily to collect garbage from each building,'' Gaikwad said.

Meanwhile, the BMC has collected Rs 44.73 lakh as administrative charges from litterbugs in the city in November. The highest collection of Rs 10.1 lakh was reported from the L ward, which registered over 10,000 cases. Over 5,000 cases were also registered by the E, T, M east, M west and P south wards.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.