Coimbatore's residents will soon have to pay waste collection charges to the city's Corporation.
A decision to collect service charges was taken at a meeting of the civic body’s senior officials held recently in which Zonal Chairpersons and heads of Standing Committees participated.
However, the authorities are yet to fix a date to commence the collection of charges.
The sources said that the Corporation would soon have the waste collection charges by-laws notified in the District Gazette – the process that sets in motion the collection.
The Corporation Council had in 2007 approved of the by-laws, which it was supposed to frame as per the mandate it got from the Central Government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
The charges will be a percentage of the property tax the assessees paid.
The sources indicated that the civic body would need at least two to three months to start collecting the charges as it was working on improving the waste collection process. It had enough men at its disposal but it needed time to match the men with the resources at hand.
In the past 12 months or so, the civic body had been successfully implementing the door-to-door waste collection process, starting with Ward 23.
It then extended the process to four more wards.
At the meeting the officials, Chairpersons and Standing Committees’ heads also decided to defer the underground drainage collection charges saying it was on the higher side.
The civic body was again supposed to collect the charges as per the mandate under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
The Corporation was on the verge of completing the underground drainage scheme.
The elected representatives said that the rates, particularly the one-time deposit for house service connection for underground drainage, were too high for both domestic and commercial establishments. The issue will be taken up in another meeting, sources said.