No More Food Wastage Or Huge Guest Lists At Big Fat Delhi Weddings!

If you are planning a wedding in Delhi soon, you need to get yourself acquainted with the new policy by the Delhi Government! Indian weddings have always been about grandeur and massive scale. Huge wedding venues, guest lists, endless food counters and more. But it also amounts to piles of food being wasted, décor wastage and huge amount of pollution in the already choked-up capital. So this new policy looks at curbing all that wastage. We are super stoked about it! 

Image via Udman by Ferns and Petals

So What Does The Policy State?

The Delhi government has drafted a policy that will keep a tab on all of these wedding aspects. These include the venue size, number of guests as well as food wastage. According to TOI, the policy has been framed with the Supreme Court's guidance and will likely be announced this month. The capital sees thousands of weddings each year and every wedding faces a massive food wastage problem. To curb this, a policy has been formed by a committee comprising four members, including officials from the Delhi Jal Board and Delhi Pollution Control Committee, and is now awaiting approval from the Supreme Court.

According to the draft policy, all organizers and caterers will have to register themselves with NGOs to manage the surplus and leftover food for distribution among the underprivileged. That is a massive massive YAY! If you are a bride who is looking to get married or a caterer, you can get in touch with Feeding India. All you need to do is fill out a form here and all the excess food from the venue will be picked up and distributed to those in need. You will also get food donation pictures from Feeding India. Isn’t it a lovely way to wed without waste?

Image via Tanisha and Nikhar's wedding 

The policy also states that depending on the size of the venue, the guest list will be curbed and needs to be approved by the Urban Local Body (ULB) for that function site. This will indirectly keep food wastage in control, stop the use of perennially installed semi-permanent pandals, nuisance of parking on outside road of the venue, safety of guests and general public, stop the misuse of scarce resources like water and stop any kind of pollution or degradation of Environment.

Image via Khushi Film Art★ 4.9

Officers of respective ULB will conduct random or complaint-based inspection. Any violations for operators of the venues will be strictly penalised. The policy states, Rs 5 lakh for first offence, Rs 10 lakh for second and Rs 15 lakh for the third or any subsequent offence.

While we love weddings of all scales, we believe that food wastage is one area that we should definitely look into and work upon. We are looking forward to a positive response by families and wedding vendors for this move.

What do you think about this? Should this be implemented in other cities too?

*All images are for representative purposes only