Tinsukia: The Dibrugarh Municipal Board (DMB) in Assam has issued a show-cause notice to a food eatery under ward number 15 of the town for violating stipulated time instructions that were set for the disposal of garbage in the dustbins.
According to sources, around 9.30 am on Friday morning, civic body personnel caught red-handed one child labourer throwing waste from M/s Jubilant Food Works Limited (Domino’s Pizza) in a dustbin on RKB path. The civic body has fixed a timeline from 8 pm to 6 am for business establishments and other households to throw garbage into the main dustbins in all the 22 wards of Dibrugarh town in upper Assam.
Speaking with EastMojo, DMB chairperson Soma Chakraborty said there are two issues — throwing garbage beyond the stipulated time period and engaging child labourer. “Regarding throwing garbage beyond the permissible time frame we have issued a show-cause notice to the trader asking why their licence should not be cancelled.”
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“We have given 24-hour time to submit their response which should come on Monday,” said Chakraborty, adding, “Based on their reply, further course of action will be decided. The civic body is clear that strict action shall follow against traders who do not follow the instructions.”
She said, regarding engaging child labourer, we have informed the deputy commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha as the matter is related to district administration domain. “It is for the district administration to take action as per law in this case,” she added.
Chakraborty said that she shall examine the time set to throw garbage in the main dustbin to accommodate traders’ concern.
Several traders in Dibrugarh had echoed concern regarding the timing set by the civic body to throw garbage into dustbins. On condition of anonymity, one such trader said, “The timing set by the municipal board is not practical as our shop timing for a day is from 9 am to 7 pm. Are we are supposed to extend closing timing by one hour to meet the timeline set by them?”
“We are already facing staff crisis. Staff do not come before 9 am and leave by 7 pm to 7.30 pm. If we put pressure on staff to stay longer they are ready to quit. So what should a trader do?” questioned another trader, adding: “The civic body and district administration should look into traders concerns and accommodated them in order to get full cooperation from us.
Another trader said: “We do not want to violate instructions and look forward to keeping our town clean but the timing has to be convenient to the traders’ community. For those shops which are open beyond 8 pm there is no problem, but then there are many shops and offices which close between 6 pm and 7.30 pm and most of them are dependent of their employees.”
