Coimbatore Corporation has proposed in the city’s budget for 2022-23 that it would resume collection of user fee from city residents for collecting and processing waste at doorstep.
Coimbatore Corporation was the only local body where solid waste user charge was not collected. The failure to collect had impacted the city’s ranking in Swachh Sarvekshan – an annual cleanliness ranking of cities, the Corporation said and added it proposed to collect ₹ 13.18 crore for the current financial year.
In a November 30, 2021 resolution, the Corporation had said it would collect the user fee arrears for April 1, 2017 – September 30, 2021 in nine instalments starting October 1 this year along with property tax.
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The Corporation Council had twice resolved to collect but due to political pressure it kept delaying the implementation. And, when it made an attempt to collect the user fee, opposition from political parties had forced it to give up the move.
But now things had reached such a stage that the civic body could no longer afford to delay the fee collection.
A solid waste expert said it was necessary to collect the user fee because the infrastructure required to collect and process the waste generated did not match the pace at which Coimbatore or any city had grown. While the Central and State governments funded infrastructure creation, it was the local body’s responsibility to meet the operation and maintenance cost .
Coimbatore Consumer Cause Secretary K. Kathirmathiyon said the Corporation should better its efficiency in waste collection.
Property tax revision
The move to collect user fee comes at a time when the Corporation had started looking at revising property tax as per a latest communication from the State Government.
While determining the quantum of hike, the Coimbatore Corporation should keep in mind that while Coimbatore and other urban local bodies underwent a hike in 2008, Chennai Corporation did not increase property tax. This had created an imbalance, which the Coimbatore Corporation should address now also because for the last 14 years – since the 2008 hike, property owners in local bodies other than Chennai, had been paying the increased tax, said Mr. Kathirmathiyon in a letter to Mayor Kalpana Anandakumar.
His calculation showed an owner in Chennai paying ₹ 5,000 as property tax a year in 1998 for a house measuring less than 600 sq.ft., would now (after the latest revision) be paying ₹ 7,500 a year at 50% revision. A property owner in Coimbatore who had paid the same tax — ₹ 5,000 in 1998 — for a house with similar measurement would now be paying ₹7,820 even after a 25% increase, as there was a tax revision in 2008.
Using the same calculation for various categories of residential buildings, commercial buildings and industries, the consumer activist suggested that the Corporation Council fix the increase at 20% for houses measuring upto 600 sq.ft., 40% for houses measuring between 601 sq.ft. and 1,200 sq.ft., 60% for those between 1,201 sq.ft. and 1,800 sq.ft. and 100% for houses over 1,800 sq.ft. Likewise, for industries, the Council limit the revision to 33% and commercial buildings at 42%.
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