Civic body to re-register errant ALMs

Mumbai: In a decision that will bring relief to many advanced locality management (ALM) groups in the city, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to re-register those groups that will show willingness to implement waste management and composting in their areas.

According to civic officials, the move, however, is temporary as these ALMs will be kept under a watch to ensure that they are carrying out waste management and composting or not.

For the strict implementation of waste segregation and composting measures, the BMC had carried out a survey of ALMs across the city. According to civic data, more than 7,000 buildings in the city are affiliated with 719 ALMs, which are registered with the BMC. During the survey, it was found that only 456 ALMs were active in their areas. Of them, 265 were found to be active in the waste management field.

Following the survey, the BMC cancelled registration of 310 ALMs for their failure to carry out waste segregation and composting in their areas. The H-west ward, which consists of parts of Bandra, Khar and Santa Cruz, has the highest number of ALM’s (122) de-registered.

On Thursday, a group of civic activists led by Bandra (west) BJP MLA Ashish Shelar met BMC commissioner Ajoy Mehta on Thursday asking him to reconsider the decision of de-registration of ALMs.

Mr Mehta said, “We would re-register ALMs but they would have to keep performing their core responsibility of waste segregation. It will only for a temporary time period as their performance would be observed before taking a call to register them permanently or not.”