The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has decided to appoint clean up marshals in six hospitals. These marshals will monitor the sidewalks and seating areas of the municipal hospitals and fine staff or patients' relatives for littering.
Nair Hospital in Mumbai Central, KEM Hospital in Sion, KEM, Rajawadi in Ghatkopar, Cooper in Vile parle and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Hospital in Kandivali.
This development came as the civic hospitals are generally criticised for lack of cleanliness, littered corridors, inefficient and rusty machinery.
However to maintain cleanliness, a senior civic official said that its custodial staff regularly cleans the hospital premises. But some municipal hospitals have a large number of patients in outpatient departments besides relatives of regularly admitted patients. The problem mainly occurs in sidewalks and sitting areas where patients congregate, eat and sleep.
Officials said, “They litter where they eat and spit on corners. With the best medical facilities, we want to maintain cleanliness in our hospitals.”
On 13 April, the clean-up marshals came into action again after two year hiatus. Clean-up marshals can impose fines ranging from INR 200 to INR 1,000 for spitting, defecating or littering in public. The fine is INR 200 for littering and spitting on public roads, INR 1,000 for washing vehicles on public roads and INR 100 for burning waste/garbage and INR 500 for littering by pets.
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